Bloodland

ASHES WAS ALWAYS WOUND PRETTY TIGHT but this is something else. This is insane…

Tom Szymanski shifts over to the passenger seat and puts his hand on the open door, ready to jump out if necessary.

‘Deep Six,’ Tube is whispering over the radio, ‘defcon fucking one here, man, what is going on?’

‘I don’t know… I…’

That’s all he can come up with, at least for now, though one or two theories are definitely forming in his brain.

He leans out a bit and when he sees where Ashes is aiming his weapon, he whispers loudly, ‘Kroner, Jesus, are you fucking crazy?’

Ashes glances back at him, this strange look in his eyes, no shit, but after a second he turns away and looks at the middle car, in at the package, then up ahead again.

Szymanski retreats into the SUV.

It’s not that Ashes has been acting weird lately, it occurs to him, he’s been acting weird since the day they first met, which was what, three, four months ago now? Though in this context ‘weird’ is certainly a relative term. Szymanski has seen all kinds of weird himself, been all kinds of weird, but he has also been equipped to deal with it, blessed or cursed with the kind of intelligence that can process shit, transform it, sit on it till the time is right, keeping any unpleasant consequences at bay or at least to a minimum. He knows he has this exterior, too, that he comes over all chilled-out, like nothing fazes him, but that’s a shell he’s developed down through the years and of course every shell has an interior, his being stuffed full of crazy just like anyone else’s.

And for crazy, for weird, read PTSD.

The acronym of choice among the private military companies.

The PMCs.

Because on the menu of symptoms you can just take your pick: depression, guilt, nightmares, alienation, isolation, psychic numbing, denial, fear of intimacy, dependence, abuse, startle reflex, panic attacks, compulsive behaviours, high-risk behaviours – we’re getting there, we’re getting there – suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation…

‘RAY.’

Oh God.

‘Tube… DON’T.’

So he’s not saying Ashes doesn’t fit in with the unit, or is a loner, or a loser or anything, which would actually be fine in the 3rd Infantry Division or the 82nd Airborne or whatever – you’re in with who you’re in with there, it’s not like you have a choice in the matter, the sad sacks line out with the best and the brightest, no questions asked – but in the PMCs it’s a bit different, they like you to fit in, they like you to get along, because having some freak of nature in the unit everyone can pick on is all very well, but it’s not exactly cost-effective, and Gideon Global is supposed to be a business operation, tight, well-oiled, not some toxic dumping ground for the twisted and the dispossessed.

Which he’s not saying Ashes is, but -

What the fuck is the guy up to? He needs to blow off a little steam or something? Scare the shit out of everyone?

Really?

The first shots are unlike any Szymanski has ever heard, and he’s heard thousands of the motherfuckers. These have a quality to them, an unreality, it’s like even they don’t believe they’ve been discharged.

But the second burst is business as usual, as is the third.

At which point, no more than about three seconds into this, with Tube’s radio voice crackling ‘STOP HIM, STOP HIM’ in the background, Szymanski piles out of the passenger side of the SUV, hits the ground and rolls forward into the back of Ray Kroner’s legs, bringing the dumbass cracker down in an awkward pile on top of him.

And right in front of the passenger door of the middle car.

The handle of which Ashes uses for leverage to get himself up again.

But also, in the process, manages to pull toward him.

So that from below, through the open door, Szymanski gets to see the terrified package flailing inside, one hand gripping the headrest in front of him, the other hand holding onto the door jamb.

Ashes facing him now, the muzzle of his M4 pointing in.

And as Szymanski scrambles to get up, his arm hurting like shit, he catches a flash of someone through the lowered window of the car door… Tube… rushing forward… kicking the door shut again, raising his hand with a Sig Sauer pistol in it and putting a bullet point blank into the side of Ray Kroner’s head.

There is silence, but only for a second. What follows it isn’t the delayed wailing of women and children, as Szymanski might have expected, it’s the agonised screaming of their executive package here who’s just had his hand badly crushed in the car door…

When Tube slammed it shut with his boot.

But hey, fuck him.

Szymanski staggers backwards a few feet – away from Ray Kroner’s crumpled body, and his twisted face, away from what at first you might be forgiven for thinking was the ‘primary scene’.

But then he gets it, gets why there’s no screaming other than that of the suit in the car, why there’s no wailing of women and children.

They’re all fucking dead.

Up ahead, and everywhere around him, he sees it.

Three short bursts of fire.

Over to the left, splayed against the wall of the concrete structure, his skull fucking daubed against it, is the tall skinny man with the bloodshot eyes. Over to the right, the wooden huts look all riddled to shit. And there, directly in front of the convoy, in a heap, along with their baskets of spilled produce, rivulets of blood trickling out in different directions, are the two women and the three small children.

4

‘SO,’ DAVE CONWAY SAYS, ‘what do you think of our chances?’

As he considers how to respond to this, Martin Boyle swivels his chair from side to side. He’s in his early-sixties, grey and paunchy, a solicitor for forty years, third generation, the law ingrained in his face, in his posture, in his syntax.

‘That depends.’ He clears his throat. ‘Notwithstanding all the work we’ll have completed here by, with any luck, Sunday night, your best chance with these people will actually be down to something else entirely, something quite intangible.’

Conway has just learnt there’s to be a make-or-break meeting with the Black Vine people on Monday. A team at McGowan Boyle is trying to come up with a convincing business model – which is what Boyle insists on calling it, having issued a blanket ban on the term ‘survival plan’.

Conway looks at him. ‘What’s that?’

‘You. The Conway Holdings brand.’ Boyle leans forward and plants his elbows on the desk. ‘Black Vine aren’t stupid, they see what’s going on. You’ve overextended, the market’s dead, it’s a simple equation and if they were a bank they wouldn’t give you a second look, but they’re not a bank, they’re an equity fund, they play a smarter game than that, they look five, ten, fifteen years into the future. They look for value in the long term. And I’m convinced that when they sit down with you that’s what they’re going to see.’

‘Hhmm.’ As Conway gives this some thought, he glances around the office, at the messy piles, on every surface, of folders, lever-arch files and back numbers of law journals. The window behind Boyle’s desk is slightly opaque, long made grimy by the Dublin rain.

‘Look, Dave, I know you might be a bit disheartened at the moment, but believe me, Conway Holdings has a serious track record. This is the first real speed bump you’ve ever hit, and everyone else is hitting it at the same time. With a little luck, you’ll recover. Most of them won’t.’

Maybe Boyle has a point.

For thirty years, under Dave’s late father, Conway & Co. was a solid, profitable operation that had started out in cement and building supplies and then diversified into mining and property development, with interests in the UK, Eastern Europe and Africa. When Conway took over he expanded the development portfolio, but he was always fairly cautious. A turning point in the company’s history came when he sold First Continental Resources, a virtually abandoned copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the multinational engineering giant, BRX.

For a huge profit.

That freed things up and the newly named Conway Holdings just mushroomed. If Conway was ever guilty of being reckless, it was only at the end of the boom.

In its last five minutes.

And only with Tara Meadows.

He pumped everything he had into it, and when he needed more, he started borrowing.

Like everyone else.

Like every other pig at the fucking trough.

‘The thing is,’ Boyle goes on, waving his hand in the air, indicating the surrounding offices, ‘this business plan we’re drawing up here, the new accountants’ reports, the fresh valuations, it’s all smoke and mirrors, it’s for show. You’re what counts. Dave Conway, the serious businessman, the dealmaker. Not some flash git who lost his head in the boom. I’ve met these Black Vine guys and I know how they think. They’ll look at the record. They’ll want to talk about stuff like that First Continental Resources deal – which, by the way, I don’t mind telling you, they are very curious about.’ He sits back in his chair. ‘Go in there and talk about that, tell them that story, and you’ll have them eating out of the palm of your hand.’

Conway flashes Boyle a look. What does he know about the First Continental deal?

McGowan Boyle only came on board afterwards – new solicitors, new accountants, new arrangements. A lot of things changed for Conway around that time.

New house, new lifestyle.

‘OK,’ he says, ‘but it’s still a crapshoot, right?’

‘There’s always an element of the crapshoot to these things. But go in there and explain to them how you got a multinational corporation to bend over like that, how you got them to shell out a hundred million dollars for an abandoned copper mine in some godforsaken shithole, and I think the odds just might tilt in your favour.’

As Conway opens his mouth to speak, to object – because this is a direction he really doesn’t want to go in – his phone starts vibrating in his pocket.

He sighs and pulls it out in order to switch it off completely.

But then he sees who it is.

Lifting the phone to his ear, he looks over at Boyle, holds up an index finger. ‘I’m sorry, Martin. I have to take this.’

Boyle nods.

‘Larry?’ he then says into the phone, rising from his chair. ‘What… what’s the matter? Take it easy.’

It’s ironic.

Having read only yesterday in Vanity Fair how well he’s supposed to get on with his brother, Clark Rundle is now seething with anger and resentment towards him. He understands that J.J. had a rough time of it out there – he had his hand crushed in the door of an SUV and witnessed some scary stuff, OK – but how can the guy not be able to recall a simple conversation he had thirty minutes prior to that? It seems ridiculous.

Rundle is sitting at his desk, waiting for Don Ribcoff to arrive with the latest update.

Don has already tried to put it down to post-traumatic stress disorder, but Rundle isn’t buying. It’s too easy. J.J. is due back this morning and he’d better have his head sorted out by then or Rundle doesn’t know what he’s going to do. J.J. doesn’t appear to have any problem dealing with all the publicity they’ve inadvertently managed to whip up with this Paris thing – which is why he’s flying home so soon, and against, apparently, all medical advice – but one slip-up before the cameras, one hint that the senator’s ‘heroics’ might not be entirely on the level, and the man will be roasted alive in the full glare of the world’s media.

And that, of course, unlikely though it may be, would have unintended consequences – easily the least of which, as far as Rundle is concerned, would be the ignominious end of J.J.’s bid for a presidential nomination. More seriously, it would undermine Rundle’s own credibility as an unofficial power broker.

In the colonel’s eyes. In James Vaughan’s eyes.

Not that Rundle gives a shit what the colonel thinks. He doesn’t. Kimbela’s a deranged megalomaniac who just happens to be sitting on some very valuable mineral deposits.

Rundle leans back in his chair.

What James Vaughan thinks, though, is a different matter altogether. That runs a little deeper. Rundle has known Jimmy Vaughan since he was a small boy – back when Vaughan and the old man were knee-deep in Middle Eastern construction projects, building pipelines and refinery facilities, as well as networking and schmoozing.

The company and the Company.

As it were.

Rundle remembers a trip to Saudi in the mid-seventies, when he was a teenager – has this vivid image in his mind of old Henry C. in his short-sleeved shirt and wide tie, with his clipboard and his pocket calculator, Jimmy Vaughan standing next to him in a white linen suit, straw panama hat and dark glasses.

The weird thing is, and maybe it’s not weird at all, is that Rundle never put any effort into trying to impress the old man (if anything it was the opposite), but he couldn’t help himself when it came to Mr Vaughan. And now, ten years after the old man croaked it – right in front of him, in the study of the house in Connecticut – here he is, middle-aged, in his eight-thousand-dollar suit, still worried about how Vaughan will react to something he has done, or is doing, or is contemplating doing.

It isn’t that simple, of course. It isn’t just dollar-book Freud. It’s actually – when he thinks about it – just dollars.

Period.

Fuck the Freud.

As chairman of BRX, Rundle is little more than a bean counter, a storekeeper, like the old man was. And for his part, J.J. is a Beltway pol, a grafter, a ballot-box hustler. But Jimmy Vaughan is different. He’s one of those extraordinary guys, and there aren’t that many of them, who somehow float between the two, and it’s not that he’s both – businessman and politician – it’s actually that he’s neither. He’s something else again, something more evolved than that. For him, it’s not about making money and having it, or about having money and spending it.

It’s -

He’s -

Rundle doesn’t know.

It’s like he’s the very embodiment of money. Cash made carnate.

Flesh and the devil. Flesh of the devil.

And back then, even when he was sixteen or seventeen, Rundle caught a whiff of this, and it has never left him. It’s in his nostrils now, as he sits here, staring down through tempered glass at the gleaming white floor of his office.

When he looks up, he sees his assistant standing in the doorway, ushering Don Ribcoff in.

Ribcoff comes over, takes a seat and the two men exchange pleasantries. Ribcoff settles some papers in his lap. He’s here to provide an update on what they have taken to calling ‘the Buenke incident’. After another few moments, Rundle gives him the nod to proceed.

‘OK,’ Ribcoff says, leaning forward and placing a sheet of paper on the desk. ‘Nine dead, including the contractor. This is a layout of the village.’ He then indicates different points on the sheet of paper with a pen. ‘The two women and three children here, the man here, and the other two, who were elderly women, in the huts here. The contractor was Ray Kroner, twenty-eight years old, from Phoenix. Ex-army, two combat tours in Iraq. Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. No prior behavioural problems. Seems he just went postal.’

‘Goddamn.’

‘Yeah, look, it’s a hazard. These guys are well paid, but the pressure they’re under is phenomenal. Having said that, at Gideon we pride ourselves on the quality of our work, and in seven years of ops we’ve only ever had two incidents that might even vaguely be comparable to this one. Both in Nasiriyah.’

Rundle doesn’t believe this for a second, but he’s not about to argue.

‘What about fallout?’

‘So far we’re good. No witnesses, which means it’s a closed system, more or less.’ Rundle leans back a little from the desk. ‘And you know, to be honest, Clark, this is nothing. It’s a drop in the ocean. Village massacres are a dime a dozen over there.’

‘Right.’

‘If it weren’t for the senator being part of the equation we wouldn’t even be talking about this. But to the extent that it happened, and that we might have to address it? In some form? Our cover story would be that the convoy was responding to hostile fire.’ He shrugs. ‘After all, we have a body on our hands to prove it.’

Rundle nods. ‘And the contractor’s family?’

‘They’ll be informed. In due course.’

‘Which means?’

‘In due course. We have considerable latitude here, Clark. It’s not like a regular casualty situation. I mean, when a member of the armed forces dies, next of kin have to be informed within forty-eight hours. Then you’re talking Arlington, a twenty-one gun salute, taps, flag draped over the casket, the whole bit. It’s a little different for private contractors. There’s no fanfare. At all. There isn’t even an official list anywhere of contractor casualties.’

Rundle sits back in his chair and considers this. After a while, he says, ‘OK, no witnesses, but what about the others?’

‘The other contractors?’ Ribcoff shakes his head vigorously. ‘No. They’re the ones who took Ray Kroner out. Because they deemed the senator to be in danger. These are men of the highest calibre, Clark. Loyalty is their watchword.’ He shakes his head again. ‘This situation, this incident, is in effective lockdown, believe me.’

Rundle nods. The nightmare scenario here would be disclosure, some kind of inquiry, prosecution even. It would be in no one’s interests – not BRX’s, not Gideon’s. And if J.J.’s presence at the scene were to become public knowledge the consequences would be unimaginable.

But Don appears to be on top of things.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘What about Kimbela?’

‘That’s not so straightforward. He’s a hard man to pin down. He won’t use a phone, as you know. He plays video games online, but he won’t do e-mail.’ Ribcoff makes a face. ‘Plus, he’s always on the move. Our man on the ground over there is doing his best to make direct contact, but it could be a day or two, and you know how cagey he is, even at the best of times.’

‘Yeah.’

Rundle gets a sinking feeling in his stomach. Sending J.J. down there on a lightning trip from Paris to suss out the colonel’s position vis-à-vis the Chinese seemed like a good idea at the time – sprinkle a little political stardust into the mix, play to the man’s vanity – but it doesn’t feel like such a smart move now.

Inevitably, Rundle will to have to go and see Vaughan later on, to give him an update, but his plan is to have cornered J.J. by then and extracted an account of the meeting.

He and Kimbela sat down together for over an hour.

He has to remember something.

Rundle shifts in his chair. ‘Don,’ he says, ‘what time does the flight get in from Paris?’

Ribcoff looks up from his papers and then checks his watch.

‘Around midday. Twelve fifteen, I think.’

‘Don’t let him out of your sight. I want a piece of him before he starts talking to CNN and Fox.’

Ribcoff nods. He shuffles his papers together and stands up. ‘I’ll keep you posted, Clark.’

Rundle watches as Ribcoff crosses the office and leaves. Then he swivels his chair around and sits for a while staring out of the window.

It’s late in the afternoon before Jimmy starts to slow down. He remembers at one point that he hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast and goes over to the kitchen to make a sandwich. As he is drizzling olive oil over mozzarella, he runs a reconstruction of the morning’s events through his head.

This is maybe the hundredth time he has done this.

There are variations, but each time it’s essentially the same.

He arrived at the hotel as arranged and met Larry Bolger. They started talking. It quickly became apparent that Bolger was drunk. Bolger then dropped this incredible bombshell.

And after that, it was pretty much downhill.

Jimmy tried to pretend that nothing had happened, but it didn’t really work. Bolger knew he’d said something he shouldn’t have, and though he seemed to be a little confused about what that was exactly, it didn’t take him long to turn the tables and start accusing Jimmy of having tricked him.

Jimmy said he hadn’t tricked anyone, that they were just talking.

Bolger grunted and sidled over towards the corner of the room.

Jimmy did his best to get the conversation back on track, thinking that maybe in a while he could broach the subject again, but within minutes Bolger was pointing at the door and shouting at him, ‘Get out, you bowsie.’

Jimmy left without protest.

On the way down in the elevator he was too stunned to think of writing anything in his notebook. But then outside, walking along Merrion Road, his heart pounding, something would come to him that he didn’t want to forget – a name or a phrase Bolger had used – and he’d stop to jot it down.

When he got back to the apartment he took his notebook out and got straight to work. Names: Clark Rundle, Don Ribcoff. Who were these people? Phrases: collateral damage; a nice piece of misdirection; not the only one. Could these really mean what he thought they meant?

He’s been hard at it ever since, rearranging all the material on his desk, but factoring Susie out this time, trying to reconfigure the narrative, to find a new pattern, an alternative meaning.

Because…

He takes his sandwich and a bottle of water back across the room.

Because Bolger implied – fuck it, he more or less said – that the helicopter crash three years ago hadn’t been an accident. Bolger was drunk, at least as far as Jimmy could tell, and the conversation was off the record, fine, so he can’t prove Bolger said it.

But -

The thing is, if it somehow turns out to be true, then it won’t matter that Bolger said it. It won’t matter who said it. Who said it won’t be the story.

If it’s true.

But how does he prove that?

Jimmy eats the sandwich, barely aware of its taste or texture. He chews, swallows, takes occasional sips of water, at the same time casting his eye over various open notebooks, printouts, the computer screen.

His phone.

From which, to his surprise, there hasn’t been a peep all afternoon. There will be, though. He knows that. Because it’s inconceivable that Phil Sweeney hasn’t already been alerted and fully briefed. Inconceivable that there won’t be significant fallout from this.

He finishes the sandwich, brings the plate back over to the kitchen and puts on some coffee. As he’s waiting for the water to heat up, he stares at the wall.

And if it is true, of course, he’ll have to alert and fully brief Maria.

Which he’d be more than happy to do.

But then he thinks… this is insane, he’s insane. Larry Bolger was drunk and barely coherent. Why would anyone think for a second that a claim like the one he made even might be true? In vino veritas, sure, but also a lot of the time in vino bullshit. In vino paranoia and delusion. Because if the claim is true, if the crash wasn’t an accident, then what was it? Some sort of a conspiracy? Involving who? These names that were mentioned? And why? Something to do with one of the other passengers?

Suddenly, it all seems a bit far-fetched.

As he makes the coffee, Jimmy considers the possibility that what has happened here is pretty simple: he has just blown a good job prospect.

Maybe Larry Bolger likes to tie one on in the mornings and tell stories. So fucking what? Winston Churchill used to have champagne for breakfast. And anyway, wouldn’t that have made the job – and the book – infinitely more interesting?

Or maybe it’s just that Bolger was testing him, seeing how he’d react.

Like an idiot, as it turns out.

He brings his coffee back over to the desk.

On the screen he has pulled up an article from the most recent online edition of Vanity Fair. It’s about one of the people Bolger mentioned, Clark Rundle, CEO of something-or-other, and his brother, a US senator.

Jimmy starts reading, but gives up after a few paragraphs.

Some bloke out of Vanity Fair?

Fuck off.

He’s tired now, and cranky, this sense creeping up on him that he’s been mugged somehow – by circumstance, by coincidence, by his own stupidity.

He takes a sip of coffee.

His phone rings.

He shakes his head, and picks it up.

By the time he gets to the hotel, Dave Conway is exhausted. He has spent most of the afternoon with Martin Boyle discussing how best to make his pitch to the Black Vine people on Monday and although his concentration mightn’t have been great to start with, the call from Larry Bolger threw him off completely. Dave’s not even sure he fully understood what Bolger was on about – something to do with the young journalist. But the easiest way to get him off the phone was to promise he’d call around and see him later on. Conway then tried Phil Sweeney, but Phil was in a meeting, so he had to leave a message – a message that he found was becoming, in the course of leaving it, increasingly urgent.

On his way up in the elevator now he takes out his mobile and switches it to vibrate.

When Mary Bolger opens the door of the apartment, Conway immediately sees the distress in her face. She doesn’t say anything, just leads him in and points across the room at Bolger, who is slumped in an armchair.

Then she disappears into the kitchen.

No greeting. No peck on the cheek. No offer of tea or a drink. All the usual formalities dispensed with.

Bolger looks over at him and nods, distress equally evident in his face.

Conway approaches. He stops at the dining table and pulls out a chair. He turns it around and sits in it. Yesterday, down in the Avondale Lounge, it had seemed as if Bolger was looking for trouble. Today it seems – Conway can’t help thinking – as if he might have found it.

There is silence for a while.

Then Conway says, ‘Right. What is it, Larry? Come on.’

Bolger groans.

Conway doesn’t think he is going to have much patience for this. After all, he’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place, kill two birds with one stone sort of thing, and now Bolger is the one, it appears, who has gone and fucked it up.

‘So?’ he says, an edge entering his voice.

Bolger sighs and runs a hand over his stubble. He has always been one of those men who needs to shave in the afternoon. But not today, apparently. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘I’ve done something stupid.’

‘O-kay,’ Conway says, and nods, feeling like a priest in the confessional. Then he sees that not only has Bolger not shaved, his eyes look bleary, and his face is a little puffy.

‘Larry,’ he says, ‘have you been drinking?’

‘Yes.’

Conway closes his eyes. He didn’t know Bolger in his drinking days, but he’s heard the stories. And he knows how all of this works. He opens his eyes again.

‘Meeting was that bad, yeah?’

Bolger grunts, then says, ‘This was before he arrived.’

‘What?’

‘I was well on when he got here.’

Oh Jesus.

‘And this stupid thing you did, I assume it wasn’t just having the drink…’

Bolger shakes his head.

‘… it was something you said?’

‘Yeah.’

Whatever Bolger may have said to this journalist, and even if he didn’t say anything at all, the mere fact that he had drink on him, and so early in the day, would be enough of a story in itself – a bullshit tabloid story, but a story nonetheless – to do him irreparable damage.

Conway shrugs. ‘So, what did you say to him?’

Bolger exhales, though it’s more of a shudder. ‘I don’t fucking know, Dave. I don’t remember exactly. We were talking about other stuff he’s done and he said he’d been working on a book, a biography -’

Dave’s heart sinks.

‘- of Susie Monaghan, and -’

‘Larry, don’t tell me you -’

‘I didn’t go into any detail, none at all, but I may have… I may have intimated that -’

‘What?’

‘- that… things weren’t what they seemed.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? Because we were talking and because I was fucking drunk, that’s why.’

‘Jesus, Larry.’

Bolger leans forward, animated all of a sudden. ‘And do you want to know why I was drunk? Do you? Because I’m tired of all this bullshit is why. I’m tired of sitting around in this fucking hotel, I’m tired of watching TV and pretending I’m writing my memoirs, I’m tired of all the remarks and sly comments I have to read every day in the papers, Larry Bolger this, Larry Bolger that, what now for Larry fucking Bolger? I’m tired of being treated as a joke. I’m tired of arrogant pricks like James Vaughan not returning my calls, I’m -’

Conway holds up a hand. ‘What?’

Bolger looks at him. ‘James Vaughan? That bastard owes me. He did me out of that IMF job and now he won’t talk to me, won’t return my calls.’ He stops here, as something seems to occur to him. ‘But he will return my calls, and you know why? Because this Jimmy Gilroy prick has nothing, nada, he can’t prove a bloody thing. But I can. And if Vaughan doesn’t start showing a little respect, maybe exert a bit of that legendary influence he’s supposed to have, then I might just be forced to -’

‘Jesus Christ, Larry.’ Conway gets up from his chair. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? Do you have any idea what you’re saying?’

Bolger leans back in the armchair. ‘You know what, Dave? A little bit of respect from you mightn’t go amiss either.’

‘What? Is that a threat? Were you smoking crack as well?’

‘Watch it.’

Conway throws his arms up. This is unbelievable. The irrationality of it is breathtaking. ‘Larry,’ he says, a slightly more pleading tone to his voice than he’d like, ‘yesterday you were worried about some small item in the paper, worried that someone might start asking questions, and today you’re ready to, what, blackmail James Vaughan? And if that doesn’t work, what? Is there a plan here? Go on fucking Liveline? You have to see how insane this is.’

‘I don’t bel-’

‘You have to see that not only would James Vaughan not allow it, I wouldn’t allow it, I couldn’t. I’m in enough trouble as it is, you drag me into this shit, and I’d be destroyed.’

Bolger looks at him and shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing here. Allow? You couldn’t allow it? You see… you see, this is what I’m talking about, and frankly I’ve had enough. I’m not putting up with any more of it.’ He bangs his fist on the side of the armchair. ‘I was the fucking Taoiseach for Christ’s sake.’

Conway turns around and runs a hand over his hair.

He takes a deep breath.

This is a nightmare.

He wants to just walk out of here, but he can’t. He has to talk Bolger down, has to bring him back from the precipice.

Plus, he has to find out what Jimmy Gilroy knows.

‘OK,’ he says, turning around again, ‘OK,’ and then adds, in an attempt to defuse the tension, ‘Larry, any chance I could get a cup of coffee or something?’

Jimmy sees from the caller ID that it’s Phil Sweeney. For a second or two he toys with the idea of letting it go into message. But that would just drag things out. He’d have to call him back at some point.

He answers it.

‘Phil?’

‘Jimmy. What’s going on?’

‘Er… what do you mean?’

‘I mean what’s going on? I heard something happened. I got a message. But I’ve been in meetings all day.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No. It’s something to do with Larry, isn’t it? Tell me.’

Jimmy hesitates, but then decides to get straight into it. What’s the point in being coy, he thinks, or in dissembling? He’ll just tell it straight, describe what happened, because Sweeney is probably going to ridicule him anyway. Then, in hearing himself tell the story, Jimmy realises afresh – with each passing word, with each new detail – just how ridiculous it actually is.

How ridiculous he is.

And how he’ll fully deserve to be ridiculed.

But -

Curiously.

That isn’t what happens.

‘Holy fuck, Jimmy.’

‘What?’

‘What do you mean what? Jesus. Are you drunk now, too?’ He pauses. ‘Listen to me, Jimmy, this is… this is very fucking serious.’

Jimmy stares at the Vanity Fair page on the computer screen. Why is it so serious? Is it the fact that Larry Bolger was drunk at ten o’clock in the morning? Is that what Sweeney is afraid will get out?

It’d make sense.

Because it can hardly be the other thing.

‘Jimmy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you hear me? I said this is very serious. You cannot repeat a word of what Bolger said, not to anyone.’

‘But -’

‘If this gets out it will be a complete fucking disaster.’

Jimmy swallows. ‘If what gets out, Phil, the fact that he was drunk?’

‘No, shit, that’s the least -’

And then he stops, obviously struck by what he is about to say.

But Jimmy is struck by it, too. He looks again at the stuff on his desk. ‘The least what, Phil?’ he says. ‘The least of his problems?’ There is a long silence, which tells Jimmy more than any possible answer to the question. ‘Phil,’ he says eventually, ‘you can’t be serious. I was ready to dismiss this. I thought if there was a story here it might be, I don’t know, his struggle with the booze or something, his struggle with reality, which certainly wouldn’t be anything I’d want to write about.’ He pauses. ‘But this -’

‘Write? You won’t fucking write anything, Jimmy. I set you up with this and if it didn’t work out, fine, you walk away from it, we’ll find you something else, but -’

‘No thanks, Phil, and I’ll write whatever the hell I want to write.’

‘That was a confidential conversation, Jimmy, you can’t go around quoting -’

‘I have no intention of quoting him, or even of referring to him. All I’m going to do is look into this. I’m a journalist, Phil. What do you expect me to do?’

No answer. Another pause. Sweeney regrouping. Then, ‘Look, Jimmy, you’re not going to find anything, you’re -’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because… oh fuck.’

Jimmy feels strangely calm through all of this, relieved almost, as though he has been liberated. It’s a feeling that has crept up on him, and as he listens to the normally confidant and sure-footed Phil Sweeney floundering at the other end of the line, he grows in confidence himself.

‘Maybe I won’t find anything, Phil. But this is way too serious an allegation to ignore.’ Glancing at the screen again, and then at one of his notebooks, he decides to take a chance. ‘With too many serious names in the mix. Clark Rundle.’ He pauses. ‘Don Ribcoff.’

As the silence that follows this expands to fill the room, Jimmy’s eyes widen. Eventually, he says, ‘Phil?’

After another moment he hears a slow, laboured intake of breath. ‘Jimmy, listen to me. Leave this alone, will you? I’m serious. You’ve no idea what you’re getting into here.’

Jimmy agrees but he isn’t about to say so.

‘I’ll see you around, Phil,’ he says and hangs up.

On three separate occasions, as he sits in Bolger’s apartment, Dave Conway feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

Afterwards, walking along the corridor towards the elevator, he takes the phone out and checks it – three missed calls, all from Phil Sweeney.

He stops at the elevator and presses the ‘down’ button.

His hand is shaking.

The elevator door opens and he steps inside.

What can Phil Sweeney tell him at this stage that he doesn’t already know? The damage is done.

He calls him anyway.

‘Phil.’

‘Dave, my God, where have you been? This is a nightmare. Larry and the kid? We shouldn’t have put the two of them together, big fucking mistake.’

See?

‘Yeah.’ Conway presses the button for the ground floor. ‘But how much does this… what’s his name again? The kid?’

‘Jimmy Gilroy.’

‘Right. How much does he know?’

‘Not much, as far as I can tell. But of course now he’s like a dog after a bone. Plus, he’s got names. Whether these came from Larry or not I don’t know. It wasn’t clear.’

‘Names, what do you mean, names?’

As the elevator car descends, floor by floor, Conway feels his insides descending even faster.

‘He mentioned Rundle. And Don Ribcoff.’

‘What?’

‘I think he was bluffing, but it means he’s not working in a vacuum.’

‘Well, can you take care of him?’

The elevator door opens onto the hotel lobby.

‘That depends, Dave. What do you mean exactly?’

Conway doesn’t know. He needs time to think.

He steps out of the elevator.

He needs time to remember. Because how much, actually, does Phil Sweeney himself know? Not everything, that’s for sure. He’d know that certain things happened – but not, in every case, how or why they happened. He’d know names and dates – but not, in every case, their full significance.

There’s a balance to be struck here and Conway needs to be careful. In any case, Phil Sweeney probably isn’t who he should be talking to about this.

Not anymore. Not going forward.

‘Talk him out of it’, he says. ‘That’s what I meant.’

‘Well, I’ll see what I can do, Dave. I suppose there’s still a couple of buttons I can press.’ He pauses. ‘Did you talk to Larry?’

‘Yeah, he’s…’ Conway swallows, still in shock. ‘I don’t know, he’s out of control.’ He stands next to a marble pillar in the lobby. ‘Right now, he’s the very fucking definition of a loose cannon.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’m not sure, Phil. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m up to my neck in this rescue package at the moment and I’m not going to let anything jeopardise it.’

What’s he saying here?

‘Right.’

He’s saying that if this shit gets dredged up again, if questions are asked, if names are mentioned and dots are joined – then that’s it. He may as well pack it in. But that also, basically, he’s not going to allow that to happen.

So who does he talk to?

‘Look, Phil,’ he says, resolve hardening. ‘You deal with this Gilroy fella, OK? Call him off, do whatever you have to do, because I don’t ever want to hear his name again. As for Larry, I really don’t know. I’m going to have to think about it.’

But the fact is he’s already thought about it.

Already thought it through.

And it didn’t take him long.

The important decisions usually don’t.

After he’s done with Phil Sweeney, he keeps the phone in his hand. He crosses the lobby and goes outside. There’s an early evening chill in the air. He stands under the portico.

He gazes out over the hotel’s manicured front lawn.

He looks back at the phone and scrolls through his list of contacts. He finds what he’s looking for. It’s a long time since he’s used this number.

He calls it. He waits. It rings.

‘Good morning, Gideon Global. How may I help you?’

‘Yes, can you put me through to Don Ribcoff, please.’

5

JIMMY HAS BEEN HANDED SOMETHING ON A PLATE HERE, it’s just that he doesn’t know what it is exactly. If Phil Sweeney had opted for Bolger being drunk as the major cause of concern, Jimmy would have had no inclination to take the matter any further. But Sweeney was rattled on the phone and made it obvious that the real problem was what Bolger said, not the state he was in when he said it – a position that only moments earlier Jimmy himself, and all on his own, had somehow managed to reason his way out of.

Now he’s right back into it.

But with no sense of direction, no compass.

A clue to the answer may lie somewhere among all this stuff on his desk. Or it may not. But so far that’s all he’s got.

He sorts through the papers again and reorganises them.

The event at Drumcoolie Castle was the Fifth International Conference on Corporate and Business Ethics, previous ones having been held in places such as Seattle and Johannesburg. It was a three-day event – a wall-to-wall roster of papers, panels, lunches, receptions and dinners, and with an extremely impressive list of attendees. But reading through the programme and subsequent newspaper reports, Jimmy gets no real sense of what the event was like, no sense that it was anything other than as intensely boring as it seems now on paper.

He goes through the list of attendees again.

Apart from a few obvious and well-known ones, the only name that sticks out on the list is one of the two that Bolger mentioned – Clark Rundle. The other name he mentioned, Don Ribcoff, doesn’t appear on the list – or, indeed, in any of the other materials Jimmy has assembled about the conference. But that doesn’t have to be significant. Nothing he has found out about Rundle means anything to him either.

Clark Rundle is the Chairman and CEO of BRX, which is a privately owned engineering and mining conglomerate with operations in over seventy countries around the world. Founded in the late nineteenth century by his great-grandfather, Benjamin Rundle, the company quickly went from producing machine parts to building railroads, highways, pipelines and hydro-electric dams. Over the decades there seems to have been a revolving door of sorts between the boards of BRX and various administrations in Washington, but that, Jimmy assumes, is standard operating procedure at this level.

None of which, in the context of what Jimmy is concerned about here, means or proves anything.

Same with the second guy. A quick internet search reveals Don Ribcoff to be the CEO of Gideon Global, a private security company with operations in dozens of countries worldwide – including Iraq and Afghanistan. Lately, according to one report that Jimmy finds, Gideon have been withdrawing from direct military engagement and increasing their presence in the areas of corporate competitive intelligence and domestic surveillance.

But again, so what? This is shit he has found on Wikipedia. It brings him no nearer to formulating even the bones of a theory about what might have happened. He could gather similar information on the dozens of other executives at the conference, but what good would it do? While there must be some reason Bolger singled out these two names, Jimmy doesn’t believe he’s going to find it on the internet.

He gets up and goes over to the window.

As he gazes out across the bay, which is disappearing behind a shroud of evening mist, Jimmy re-runs the conversation with Bolger in his head.

‘Think about it. She wasn’t the only one.’

‘The only one what?’

‘The only one who died in the fucking crash, you gobshite.’

And suddenly it seems so obvious.

He goes back to his desk, shuffles through some papers and finds what he’s looking for.

The passenger list.

It was a privately leased helicopter, piloted by Liam Egan, with five passengers on board. Apart from Susie Monaghan, there was Ted Walker, Gianni Bonacci, Ben Schnitz and Niall Feeley. He has extensive notes on each of these men, and he glances through them now. But nothing new jumps out at him.

It’s stuff he’s been over a hundred times before.

Ted Walker was a top executive at Eiben-Chemcorp, thirty-eight years old and big into extreme sports. The trip was believed to have been organised by him in order to showcase to fellow danger junkie Ben Schnitz some ideal paragliding spots along the north Donegal coastline. Schnitz was a senior vice president at Paloma Electronics.

Also assumed to have been an extreme sports enthusiast, Gianni Bonacci was director of a UN Corporate Affairs Com-mission, and Niall Feeley, an executive at Hibinvest, was known to have been a close friend of both Ted Walker’s and Gary Lynch’s – Gary Lynch having been the guy Susie Monaghan had just broken up with.

The theory at the time was that Susie went along with Feeley in a desperate attempt to make Lynch jealous.

Fine.

But according to Bolger, Susie was collateral damage. So does this eliminate Niall Feeley too? Was he collateral damage as well? Is Ted Walker’s brother being a friend of Phil Sweeney’s significant? And what about the other two?

Jimmy looks over the papers again. He doesn’t know what to think. Nothing presents itself as significant, and everything does. Which isn’t much of a help.

He needs to widen his frame of reference. He needs to get out there and talk to someone.

But where does he start?

It takes him a few minutes of rummaging around – through notebooks, the phone directory, online – to come up with a couple of numbers.

Ted Walker’s brother, Freddie. This is a brash move and it will probably piss Phil Sweeney off no end, but he feels it’s legitimate.

He dials the number. It rings and then goes into message. He hangs up.

The second number he has unearthed is for Gary Lynch.

It’s the same story.

But this time he leaves a message.

Please give me a call.

Rundle sits at his usual table at the Orpheus Room, nursing a gimlet, waiting for J.J. to arrive. Don Ribcoff did his best this afternoon, but apparently the senator couldn’t be dissuaded from engaging with the media pack at JFK or from then doing a couple of hastily arranged appearances on cable news shows. Rundle caught one of these back at the office and although the whole time he was watching it his heart was in his mouth nothing disastrous happened. Apart from the brace on his hand and wrist, J.J. looked good. He was calm, composed, and constantly made the point that he didn’t want all of this hoopla to be a distraction from the more serious issues he and his fellow delegates had been so focused on in Paris. It was a performance, of course, but Rundle was relieved to see that J.J. seemed to be in full control of his faculties.

He’s due any minute now, so hopefully they can clear things up and move on. Because Rundle has invested a huge amount in this already – time, energy, money.

He set up the Buenke operation at James Vaughan’s behest, and has kept it ticking over for him, but the bottom line is if he blows the current negotiations Vaughan won’t forgive him – he’ll cut him loose and leave him in the wilderness, as he has done with so many others in the past.

Rundle reaches for his gimlet.

He’s in too deep now to let this slip away.

He looks over at the entrance. There is a flurry of activity. This will be the senatorial entourage – handlers, advisors, security. He spots Herb Felder and one or two other people he knows. After a moment the seas part and J.J. appears. He strolls over, nodding and smiling at various people on the way. He arrives and sits down, but with his back to the room.

Rundle’s eye is immediately drawn to the brace, an elaborate and uncomfortable-looking affair of wire and gauze, but it’s the expression on J.J.’s face that he finds particularly disturbing. Away from the cameras now, and sitting with a family member, pressure off, he seems pale, reduced somehow, as if he needs to be taken in hand.

‘How are you, J.J.?’

‘I’m all right, Clark. I’m tired. It’s been a crazy few days.’ A waiter approaches but J.J. waves him away. ‘This has been good for me, but I can’t let it drift. I can’t let it dissipate. I’ve got to take it to the next level, you know, keep the traction but change the conversation.’

Rundle stares at him. ‘Change the conversation?’

‘Yeah, away from Paris, get into some policy thing, an issue. Move it forward.’

Rundle nods. ‘Look, J.J., I sent you down there for a reason. It was important. And this -’ he points at the brace, then indicates behind him, at Herb Felder and the others ‘- it’s all very well, and I hope it works out for you, I do, but right this minute I couldn’t give a fuck about any of it.’ He leans forward, hands out, pleading. ‘I need to know what Kimbela said to you.’

J.J. sighs and slumps back in his chair.

‘I know, Clark, I know. I’ve been trying.’

‘You’ve been trying? I need comprehensive notes on what you guys talked about. I need minutes. Come on, J.J., you’ve sat on a thousand committees, you know the drill.’

‘This wasn’t like any committee, Clark. This was the weirdest fucking experience of my life.’ He leans forward as well. ‘And I’m not just talking about the shooting, which was bad enough, believe me, because I can still see… I can still see the pools of blood, and those little vacant, limp faces, shit -’

‘OK, OK.’ Rundle glances around. ‘Take it easy.’

‘But it was already weird before that, at the compound, from the very moment I arrived there. It’s bizarre, he has this half-built… villa, with a portico and fake-looking Louis Quinze shit inside it, and then nearby there’s this row of concrete shacks, like interrogation rooms or something, whatever, I don’t know. And that’s where we went, straight from the house into one of these, Kimbela leading the way, his permanent entourage right behind him, these heavily armed, heavily drugged children… and meanwhile all I’ve got on either side of me is a couple of pumped-up Gideon guys -’

‘J.J. -’

‘One of whom, by the way, turns out to be a complete fucking psycho.’

‘J.J. -’

‘I’m just telling you what happened, Clark, OK?’ He shakes his head. ‘So we’re in this shack, right, sitting at a metal table, bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, it’s dank and smelly, and I’m waiting for… I don’t know what I’m waiting for… a pair of pliers to be produced, a blowtorch, a chainsaw, but then in comes this little girl, eight or nine years old, real cute from a distance, but scrawny up close, and with these sunken eye sockets, like a fucking zombie or something, and she’s carrying a tray of… tea things, which she then puts on the table and proceeds to serve us tea from, this ornate pot, these old china cups, it was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile Kimbela is sitting opposite me, talking his fat sweaty face off, arms flailing, every part of him in constant motion, and the thing is Clark, I’m so freaked out by this stage, I’m so fucking terrified, that I’m just not taking anything in, I’m not hearing a word he’s saying.’

Rundle can feel himself deflating.

‘Did you even -’

He stops and looks his brother in the eye. What was he thinking of, sending him down there? J.J. has never done anything real in his life. It’s all been campaigns and poll numbers, finance bills and select committees, he’s never served in the armed forces, hasn’t travelled that much outside of trade delegations, and he has certainly never met anyone remotely like Arnold Kimbela before.

Rundle thinks back to when he first met the colonel himself. It was about three years ago, and in Paris of all places. A darkened apartment in the Bastille district, Rundle sitting opposite the enigmatic, chunky thirty-nine-year-old, armed guards lurking in the shadows. It was a master class, as he recalls it, in various dark arts, in contract negotiation, in price structuring, in sheer ballsiness. And he expected J.J. to be able to do something similar? And not even in the familiar surroundings of a western city, but actually down in the insane heat and chaos of Congo itself.

He must have been out of his mind.

‘Look, J.J.,’ he says, one last shot. ‘Did you hear any mention of renegotiating the terms? Anything about redrafting -’

‘Clark, listen to me, it’s a miracle I didn’t shit in my pants, OK? And if I’d known what was round the corner, on the ride back to the airstrip, I… Jesus, even thinking about it now.’

‘Relax, J.J., would you? You did what you could, and I’m grateful.’

‘I’m sorry, Clark.’

Rundle shrugs. He leans back in his chair.

Damn.

It comes to him as he’s having a dump in the en suite bathroom. Humiliation. If you’re looking for a unified field theory of all things Larry Bolger, then that’s it, humiliation. It’s the linking thread, the connective tissue, it’s the recurring theme throughout his life and career. When he was a young man, for instance, his father treated him like a fool, kept comparing him unfavourably to his older brother, Frank. Then there was Paddy Norton, who bossed him around – effectively bullied him – and for the best part of twenty-five years. There was his disastrous visit to Tokyo. His interview with Hot Press. That series of snubs by the German Chancellor when he was EU Council president. And also, let’s not forget, the ignominy of being forced out of office by the same Gang of Three who got him into office in the first place.

Bolger can’t dwell on that one for too long.

But now he has, what? James Vaughan giving him the runaround and the likes of Dave Conway telling him what he is or isn’t allowed to do.

Not to mention that little prick of a journalist.

A sudden rap on the door interrupts his train of thought.

Coming here and…

‘Are we all right in there?’

… having the nerve to…

Bolger closes his eyes.

‘Yes, Mary,’ he says, ‘we are all right.’

Jesus.

Silence follows, then footsteps moving quietly away.

Bolger clenches his fists now, and winces. Something is happening.

Finally.

In agony, he fixes his gaze on the gleaming white tiles of the bathroom floor, his fists still clenched. He’s going to have to do something about this, go to the doctor with it, get it seen to.

Which of course will mean only one thing. More fucking humiliation.

After a while, his mind in a fog, the pain subsides.

He finishes up, and a few minutes later he’s back out in the living room, pacing up and down. Mary is running a bath and he’s decided to wait until she’s in it before he -

Before he -

Places the call.

Through the open door of the bathroom, the roar of the water comes to a sudden halt.

He glances over at the drinks cabinet, but doesn’t feel a thing. In fact, the thought now of a drink makes him a little nauseous.

He’s still hungover and suspects he will remain so well into tomorrow.

He hears Mary getting into the bath, the gentle slosh of the water, the displacement – your man, what’s his name, Archimedes.

He gets his mobile phone from the table and sits down in the armchair, facing the TV. He puts on Sky News with the sound off. He finds the number and hits Call.

It’ll be the same as before, he bets, straight into message. He’s not even sure what this number is, if it’s an office or home number, a service, or what.

‘You have reached…’

Bolger rolls his eyes, waits.

‘Yes, Mr Vaughan, it’s Larry Bolger again. Listen, I’ve been thinking and I’ve come to a decision. You promised me that IMF thing, and fine, maybe it didn’t work out for some reason, whatever, but it seems to me that your obligation in the matter remains… unfulfilled.’ He stares at the TV as he speaks, at the Sky newscaster, his heart pounding. ‘Well, time is running out, let’s put it that way. Or let’s put it another way. I want a job. Do you understand me? A real position, something commensurate with my experience. Like we talked about. Because here’s the deal. Drumcoolie Castle, yeah? Are you with me?’ He clears his throat. ‘I was at that table along with the rest of them, don’t forget that. I heard everything. Yeah? And I followed it all afterwards, too.’ He lets that hang in the air for a second. ‘Now, the thing is… there’s a nuclear option here, which I won’t hesitate to use, believe me. And I think you know what I mean.’ He clears his throat again. ‘So I expect to hear back from you this time.’

He pauses, and hangs up.

His heart is still pounding.

He almost laughs.

At around eleven thirty Jimmy gets a callback from Gary Lynch.

‘I got your message,’ the voice says. ‘So. Who are you? What do you want?’

Jimmy explains. He’s a journalist. He has some questions about Susie Monaghan. Any chance they could meet?

‘Susie? Holy fuck.’ Lynch sounds drunk. There’s noise in the background, voices, music. He’s in a pub somewhere or a club. ‘Yeah,’ he then says. ‘Why not. I’m in Alba, in town. I’ll be here for another hour or two.’

He hangs up.

Jimmy looks at his phone.

That’s it?

Does he go and meet him? It’s late, but if Lynch is drunk, then yes – going on today’s form. Now is probably the perfect time to go and meet him.

He gets ready in a hurry and heads out. He flags down a taxi on Strand Road and makes it into town in about twenty minutes.

Alba is a club just off George’s Street, over a trendy bistro called Montmartre.

As he is going up the stairs to the club Jimmy realises that he doesn’t know what Gary Lynch looks like. He’s probably seen photographs of him, but none that he remembers, none that stuck. He walks into the main room, which is bright and airy, with a long bar running along the back. The place is crowded but not hectically so, not as crowded on a Thursday night as it would have been a couple of years ago.

There is music. It is loud, pounding.

He is greeted by a hostess.

‘Hi,’ he shouts. ‘Gary Lynch?’

The hostess smiles and points over to a side room.

‘Can I take your jacket?’

Jimmy shakes his head. ‘No, you’re grand,’ he says, and smiles back. He makes his way through the crowd. As he approaches the side room, he sees that it’s a small lounge area with leather sofas and armchairs. Two couples, facing each other across a low table, occupy one part of the room. They’re drinking pints and talking loudly. To the right, sitting alone in a deep armchair, and looking slightly forlorn, is a guy in a suit. He’s about forty. He’s slim, has thinning dark hair and a goatee. In his right hand he’s holding a glass of what looks like whiskey or brandy.

Jimmy leans forward. ‘Gary?’

The man looks up. He seems puzzled. After a moment, he says, ‘Holy shit, that was fast. You’re the journalist?’

Jimmy nods and sits down in the armchair next to the one Gary Lynch is sitting in.

He holds out a hand, ‘Jimmy Gilroy.’

They shake.

‘So,’ Gary Lynch says, ‘Susie Monaghan? That was another lifetime.’ He grunts. ‘Man, another planet.’

Jimmy leans forward to hear properly.

‘In what sense?’ he says.

‘Well.’ Lynch takes a sip from his glass and then explains that, what was it, three, four years ago, he was a corporate executive on a salary of two hundred and fifty K per annum, with the same again in bonuses and perks. That he was footloose and fancy free, always had the latest Beemer, city breaks every fucking weekend. But that two years ago he lost his job, company upped sticks and relocated to Poland, go figure. And that since then he’s done a stint as a taxi-driver, he’s worked at a call centre and he’s now the manager of a shoe shop around the corner on George’s Street. ‘Keeping the head above water, you know?’

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy says, debating whether or not he should pitch in with a reference to his own circumstances.

‘I’m only glad I never got married,’ Lynch goes on. ‘Though I came close with Susie. Guys I know from the old days? Stuck now with kids, debts, mortgages they can’t afford. It’s a nightmare.’

Looking around, Jimmy wonders where some of these guys are tonight – at home, probably, watching CSI or an old Leinster schools cup final on Setanta Sports.

‘Talk to me,’ Jimmy says, ‘about that weekend, the conference. Drumcoolie Castle.’

Lynch looks at him and laughs nervously. ‘Jesus, cut to the chase, why don’t you? What kind of journalist are you anyway? Is this an article or -’

‘I’m writing a biography of Susie,’ Jimmy says firmly. This may no longer be true, but it sounds good, and it works.

‘Oh, well then,’ Lynch says, nodding his head sagely, ‘a biography. Cool. Am I going to be in it?’

‘That depends. I reckon so. You were engaged to Susie, weren’t you?’

‘Yeah. For a while.’ He takes another sip from his glass. ‘But I couldn’t keep up with her, to be honest. And I was small potatoes anyway, where Susie was concerned. I may have effectively been on half a million per annum, but back then that was nothing. I didn’t own anything, I didn’t run anything. What Susie needed was someone with assets, property, money in the bank. Staying power. There were guys before me like that, but I guess they didn’t work out either. And probably for the same reason. Couldn’t keep up with her.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Oh.’ He groans. ‘Do I have to spell it out? She was a fucking pig when it came to the coke.’ He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. ‘What she was, basically, was a coke whore, no other word for it. That’s what was going on that weekend. It was all about the charlie.’

Jimmy’s heart sinks. Does he want to hear this?

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look, I’m not a hundred per cent certain, but I had this feeling at the time that she was involved in setting up some sort of a… deal, and a pretty big one. I bumped into her late on the Saturday night and she more or less told me that straight out. But when I pressed her for details, she went all coy.’

‘A coke deal?’

‘I assumed so, yeah.’

A bar girl appears at this point and Lynch holds up his glass. Jimmy nods at her and says, ‘Yeah, whatever that is, and I’ll have the same.’

The bar girl smiles and makes a face that says, gents, er, I’m not a mind reader.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Lynch says, ‘a triple Hennessy.’

Jimmy swallows and nods.

The bar girl retreats.

‘So,’ Jimmy says, after a suitable pause, ‘why did she go for the helicopter ride? The story doing the rounds was that she was trying to make you jealous. Heading off with Niall Feeley.’

‘Hah. I heard that one, too, and you know what? Niall Feeley was a close friend of mine, but he was big into the show tunes as well as the paragliding, so that doesn’t wash. There was something else going on.’

He stops there, looks into his glass and swirls what’s left in it around.

Jimmy waits.

Lynch then knocks the brandy back in one go. He holds the glass aloft, allowing the burning sensation to work its little bit of magic.

Jimmy fights the impulse to reach over and shake him. After a moment, he says, quietly, ‘So, what do you think was going on?’

‘I don’t know. For the life of me.’ He pauses. ‘Jimmy, isn’t it?’

Jimmy nods.

‘Look, Jimmy, Susie was great, she was funny, she was different – she was the light of my fucking life for a while, I can tell you that – but by the end there, by that weekend, she was in serious trouble, she was strung out, and I just didn’t want to get involved. I didn’t want to know. So what I’m telling you is, there was something going on, sure… but what that was exactly? I haven’t a bloody clue.’

Jimmy is about to respond to this when the bar girl re-appears. She lays the two drinks down and hands Jimmy the bill.

Thirty-eight euro. For fuck’s sake.

He takes out his wallet, hands over a fifty and waits for the change. He doesn’t look at the bar girl. When she’s gone, he lifts his glass and takes a sip from it.

Lynch does the same.

Then Jimmy says, ‘What about Ted Walker?’

‘No, Ted organised the whole thing, him and Niall. They were showing off, trying to impress Ben Schnitz. It was all a bit… it was a scene. If you catch my drift.’

Jimmy nods along. Then something occurs to him.

‘What about the other guy? The Italian? Gianni something. Bon… Bonacci?’

Lynch raises his eyebrows and stares into space for a while, thinking. ‘Yeah,’ he says eventually. ‘Right, the Italian guy. I forgot about him.’

‘Was he…?’

‘No, he was… come to think of it, he was with Susie, but not… he wasn’t with her, I mean, as such, no one thought that, because he was a weedy little guy, short, with glasses. But you know that was typical Susie as well, she was always picking up strays and oddballs. She was a tease. She’d play with them for a while and then send them packing, usually with an irreversible hard-on and a broken heart for their troubles.’

‘So he wasn’t with her, strictly speaking, and he wasn’t with the paragliding contingent?’

Lynch considers this. ‘No.’

‘Then what do you -’

‘I don’t know. He wasn’t even an executive. He was some kind of a UN inspector or something.’

‘Right.’

Lynch puts his glass down and stands up. ‘I’m going to the john,’ he mutters.

Jimmy watches him as he wanders off. None of this is clear. But at the same time, in a way, it’s crystal clear.

Because it’s the same thing he’s heard over and over again. Directly or indirectly.

This isn’t about Susie Monaghan.

Which means it’s about someone else.

And it seems obvious to Jimmy now – without any evidence at all – that that someone else is Gianni Bonacci.

Clark Rundle stands under the sidewalk canopy and watches the evening traffic drift by on Park. This is another of those times when he wishes he still smoked. The doorman is only a few feet behind him and probably has a pack of butts in his coat pocket, or inside somewhere, behind his little desk or in his cubbyhole. But what’s Rundle going to do here? Turn and ask the guy, maybe make a face, all pally and conspiratorial, wait for the pack to be produced… then someone comes along and he gets caught bumming a cigarette off of Jimmy Vaughan’s doorman?

Nice.

Besides, it’s more than a smoke he needs.

More than an afternoon with Nora. More than a week in the Bahamas.

He rubs his hands together in the cold.

It’s…

A moment later, Don Ribcoff’s limo pulls up at the kerb. The doorman appears from behind Rundle, has it covered. Ribcoff emerges from the back of the car looking solemn, anxious even.

‘Clark.’

‘Don.’

They spoke briefly on the phone a little earlier. Ribcoff explained about the call he got from Dave Conway in Dublin and Rundle explained about his sit-down with J.J.

A follow-up with the old man seemed inevitable.

But when Rundle got on to him Vaughan said he was busy, said he had some people around and could maybe squeeze out ten minutes if they showed up before seven thirty. Rundle felt like saying he was busy too, but that seeing as how they were looking at a potential catastrophe here – a total and utter meltdown, in fact – he for one didn’t have a problem cancelling his fucking dinner plans.

What he said was, OK, whatever, they’d see him at his place at seven twenty.

Rundle and Ribcoff go through the lobby now and take the private elevator up to Vaughan’s apartment. The interior of the elevator cab is something to behold, with its wood panelling, its brass insets, its chandelier and mirrors, its little red velvet bench. Rundle compares it to the stainless steel panels and tubular handrails of his own elevator cab in the Celestial. If that one is maybe a bit too spare and minimalist, a bit too late modern, Vaughan’s one is an outrageous throwback to the Gilded Age.

Ribcoff looks around and makes a low whistling sound.

‘You think this is bad,’ Rundle says, ‘wait till you see the actual apartment.’

They are greeted in the entry foyer by one of Vaughan’s staff and then ushered into the library. In this high-ceilinged, mahogany-panelled room the two men wait – and for the best part of their allotted ten minutes. When Vaughan eventually appears, wearing a tuxedo and smoking a cigar, he seems a little preoccupied. He makes no attempt at small talk, nor does he ask them to sit down or offer them anything to drink.

‘So?’

Rundle begins. He explains that J.J. bottled it and came back from Congo with nothing. The Buenke incident has been contained, he says, but they currently have no idea what Kimbela’s position is vis-à-vis them, vis-à-vis the Chinese, nothing. On top of which, he goes on, there appears to be some sort of a situation brewing over in Dublin.

Vaughan furrows his brow.

Ribcoff takes a step forward. ‘I got a call this afternoon,’ he says. ‘From Dave Conway. Remember him?’

Vaughan nods.

‘Well, he told me that Larry Bolger has been hitting the bottle, running his mouth off. Seems he spoke to some journalist.’

Vaughan’s reaction to this is somewhat muted.

After a long silence, Rundle says, ‘You’re not surprised by that, Jimmy?’

‘No, I’m not.’ The old man gives him a cryptic look and then takes a puff from his cigar. ‘The truth is, Larry Bolger has been running his mouth off to me. Leaving voice messages. It’s actually getting out of hand. It’s as close now to blackmail as makes no difference.’

Rundle’s heart sinks. ‘Jesus H. Christ.’

Ribcoff exhales audibly, but doesn’t say anything.

Vaughan paces back and forth across the room, taking occasional puffs from his cigar.

Rundle takes a step backwards and leans on the end of the red leather couch behind him. What he actually does need, thinking about it, is a week in the Bahamas with Nora.

And a carton of Lucky Strikes.

Which’d just be for openers.

‘Don,’ Vaughan says eventually. ‘We’ve got to do something about this.’

Ribcoff nods in acknowledgement.

Vaughan points his cigar at him. ‘Come to my office first thing in the morning. We can talk about it then.’ He pauses. ‘And Clark?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Seems to me that you need to take a trip.’

Rundle’s stomach does a little somersault.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You need to take a trip,’ Vaughan repeats. ‘To the Congo. Democratic Republic of. See our friend. Get some answers.’ He studies the glowing ash at the tip of his cigar. ‘Because it’s clear that your idiot of a brother wasn’t up to the job.’ He lets that hang in the air for a moment. ‘Though presumably you will be.’ He looks up, meets Rundle’s hard stare. ‘Won’t you?’

6

‘PRONTO.’

Holding up the notebook, Jimmy Gilroy braces himself.

‘Er… posso parlare con la Signora Bonacci, per favore?’

‘Non e a casa addesso.’

What?

‘Er -’

‘Chi parla?’

Shit.

Panic.

That didn’t take long.

‘Er, non parlo italiano.’

There is a pause.

‘English?’

‘Yes. English. I speak English. I’m Irish. Sono irlandese.’

‘Oh.’ Another pause. ‘Irlandese.’

Jimmy isn’t sure but even after these few brief seconds… does he detect a change of tone?

‘Yes, er… si.’ What does he think he’s doing? He got one of the students across the hall to come over and write a few phrases down in this notebook. But the hope was that Signora Bonacci might have a bit of English herself and that they could muddle through.

‘What I can… what… what is it you want?’

The voice is young, female. Signorina Bonacci?

‘My name is Jimmy Gilroy,’ he says, swivelling in his chair. ‘I am a journalist.’ The next bit he already feels guilty about, because – he doesn’t know – is it even true? ‘I am investigating the air crash three years ago in which Gianni Bonacci was killed.’

‘O dio mio.’

Jimmy winces. ‘I’m sorry.’

There is a long silence, and then, ‘I am Francesca Bonacci. Gianni’s daughter.’

‘Hello.’ Jimmy winces again. How young is she? A teenager? A kid? It’s hard to tell. Bonacci was forty-five when he died. ‘May I ask how old you are, Francesca?’

‘Seventeen.’

He needs to be careful here.

‘Look, I’m sorry to disturb you in this way, but… I would like to speak with your mother sometime, if that is possible. Does she speak English?’

‘No. She does not speak any English.’

This sounds slightly defensive, even a bit confrontational. Has he offended her? ‘Could I ask you some questions?’ he then says, with nowhere else to go. ‘Or ask her some questions through you?’

‘What kind of questions? What is it you are investigating, mister, er…?’

‘Gilroy. But please, call me Jimmy.’ He pauses. ‘I’m not sure what I’m investigating, Francesca, and that’s the truth. I realise this must be very painful for you, and I apologise for the intrusion, but I just need to gather some information first before I can -’

‘Gather?’

‘What? Er… collect. Get.’ He looks around. Where was he? ‘Before I can…’ He trails off, unsure how to proceed.

‘Accuse.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Accuse. Before you can accuse somebody. Is that what you mean?’

Jimmy looks again at the notebook in his hand, stares at the spidery scrawl, as though it were some type of code, something he could use to turn this situation around. But the fact is, there’s nothing left here to decipher – these are just simple phrases and he has already used them up.

He tosses the notebook onto the desk.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, almost to himself, ‘maybe. But accuse who, and of what?’

Francesca Bonacci scoffs at this. ‘Now you are looking for answers? Now? What about three years ago, eh?’

That’s exactly what Maria Monaghan said to him.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When we wanted answers to those questions, my mother, my uncles, the lawyers, no one would talk to us, in Ireland, no one would give us any information. We found what was the phrase, someone told me, a brick wall.’

She’s angry. It also strikes Jimmy how remarkably self-possessed she seems to be for seventeen. But at the same time, what is she saying?

‘I don’t understand, Francesca. Questions? Answers? If what happened was an accident -’

‘Oh, per piacere,’ – from the tone he takes this to mean oh, please – ‘you really believe that?’

‘Well, it’s what I’m trying to find out.’

There is silence for a moment. Then she says, ‘What is your e-mail address?’

His impulse is to ask why, but he just gives it to her. This could well be a step in the right direction.

‘You will need a translator,’ she says.

He’s not sure what this means. Something she is going to send him?

‘OK. No problem.’

‘I must go now,’ she says.

He doesn’t argue. ‘Thank you, Francesca.’

The line goes dead.

Jimmy closes the phone and puts it down. He sits back and stares at the computer screen.

He’s exhausted.

It took him over an hour and several phone calls to locate that number. This was followed by an awkward twenty minutes with the student from across the hall, who was clearly hungover and kept insisting it’d be easier if he made the call himself. But Jimmy couldn’t take the chance.

Then… questions, answers, a brick wall… you really believe that? Bonacci’s widow and daughter making the same claim that Larry Bolger made?

A few minutes later things get even knottier when he hears the ping of an incoming e-mail. It’s from Francesca. There is no message, just a single hyperlink. He clicks on it and his browser opens up onto the homepage of what looks like an Italian news website.

At first it makes no sense to him. It’s in Italian. He doesn’t understand any of it. He considers bothering the student across the hall again when suddenly something comes into focus for him. He recognises a few names clustered together – Enrico Mattei, Giuseppe Pinelli, Aldo Moro, Marco Biagi, Carlo Giuliani. As far as he remembers, from things he’s read and seen over the years, these men were all high-profile victims of political assassination.

In some form or other. At least in theory.

At which point he realises this must be a website devoted to, or specialising in, Italian conspiracy theories. Aldo Moro, for example, was the ex-prime minister who was kidnapped and killed in 1978, allegedly by the Red Brigades. Enrico Mattei was a politician who challenged the oligopoly of the international oil markets and died in a mysterious plane crash in the early 1960s.

Jimmy flicks around the site for a while, scans various chunks of text at random. Eventually, in a sidebar, he comes across Gianni Bonacci’s name. He is unable to decipher the text that surrounds it, but the very presence of Bonacci’s name here, on a website of this nature, surely indicates that -

What?

When Jimmy Googled Bonacci’s name before, he filtered out any stuff that wasn’t in English. The stuff he did look at was UN-related and fairly uninteresting. He Googles the name again now and sees that there are references to him on dozens of Italian sites, many of which – at a glance – also contain references to Mattei, Moro and others. In addition to this, he repeatedly comes across words such as omicidio, assassinio, vittima, cospirazione.

From what Jimmy can make out, Bonacci would be fairly low down on any league table of political assassinations, but the mere fact that his death is perceived by some people in this way at all comes as quite a shock.

And there must be a reason for it.

He swivels his chair around, looks across the room at his bookshelves.

Mustn’t there?

Or is even posing this question a first and dangerous step into the delusional, self-perpetuating fog that is the mindset of the conspiracy theorist?

He swivels back around.

It doesn’t matter, though. It’s fine. Someone else’s perception of the truth – however outlandish or irrational – is a valid starting point for any investigation.

He sets up a reply to Francesca’s e-mail. He thinks about what to say. He starts typing. But when he is half a sentence in, his buzzer sounds.

Damn.

He gets up and goes over to the intercom, presses the button. ‘Yeah. Who is it?’

‘Hi, Jimmy. It’s Phil Sweeney.’

Jimmy closes his eyes for a second. He turns away from the intercom. He groans.

Why didn’t he just leave it?

Rundle gets up at six and puts on some coffee. He takes a shower and then spends at least twenty minutes in the walk-in closet choosing which of his fifty or sixty suits to wear. There is no real reason for him to do this. He doesn’t have any particular thing on today. But he finds it relaxes him, the ritual of it, moving down the line, checking out the different fabrics, feeling the subtle variations in texture… vicuna, merino, cashmere, silk.

It’s distracting. It keeps his mind occupied.

Though admitting this fact sort of defeats the purpose.

So he eventually just picks one out at random – a charcoal grey William Fioravanti.

He goes back to the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee.

The thing is, he doesn’t mind travelling to Congo – in a way he’s looking forward to it, taking the reins, settling this thing once and for all – but what he does resent is being told to go. It’s the attitude he has a problem with, the tone. Rundle is well used to Vaughan’s quasi-imperial style – he grew up with it, and most of the time he even enjoys it – but last night was simply too much. The contempt Vaughan displayed for Rundle, and right there in front of Don Ribcoff, was…

Well, it was unacceptable.

And it wasn’t only the offhand manner, or the business of the ten-minute ‘audience’. No, Vaughan had said earlier he was having some people around, but it soon became clear that these weren’t just any people. Crossing the foyer on his way out, Rundle caught a glimpse through the door of the main reception room, which was ajar, and he’s pretty sure he recognised Dick Cheney standing there talking to the CEO of Chipco and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Nice little get-together. And what, all of them casually over for canapés and a glass of white wine? A quick tour of the walk-in humidor?

Rundle could care less about Vaughan’s social life, but he has taken to seeing himself – at some level – in the role of Vaughan’s protégé. He also knows that Vaughan has come to depend on him for certain things – that the Buenke project, for example, always significant, has assumed an even-greater urgency of late. So why, Rundle wonders, would Vaughan exclude him from such a high-level gathering of luminaries and policy-makers? Why would he have him scuttled in and out of the apartment as though he were no more than an errand boy?

Rundle doesn’t wish to be unkind, but he half suspects that James Vaughan may be succumbing to a mild form of dementia, a strain of clinical paranoia perhaps, and one that is specifically associated with old age. Vaughan settles in his mind that he can no longer fulfil his ambitions unaided, that he is now dependent on this younger man – and he kicks out in rebellion, as though to ward off death, to deny its proximity.

One day he lionises the younger man, the next day he humiliates him.

Rundle considers himself a student of human nature and can understand the dynamic at play here – not that he enjoys being on the receiving end of it. Nail this Congo thing, however, and maybe the game changes. Maybe he’ll have Vaughan exactly where he wants him.

Until then he can put up with the mood swings and the abuse.

Rundle finishes his coffee and gets moving.

Outside, his car is waiting.

On the way to the office, Thirty-fourth Street flitting past, he makes some notes. If this really is to be a game changer, he’ll need to be heading down there with some serious leverage under his arm. J.J. wasn’t authorised to make any offers; he was just supposed to listen. But the time for that has passed.

He pencils in a few calls for the morning.

Then, of course, he’ll have to discuss travel and security arrangements with Don Ribcoff.

Phil Sweeney arrives at the open door and gives it a little tap.

Jimmy is at his computer, pretending to be absorbed in something. He waits a couple of seconds before looking up from the screen. ‘Phil, how’s it going?’

‘Not bad, Jimmy, not bad.’

‘Come in, sit down.’

Phil Sweeney has aged quite a bit since Jimmy last saw him. As usual, he’s wearing a very expensive suit, and he’s got the shoes, the watch, the cologne. But he’s also lost weight, and it doesn’t look like the kind you lose because you’re eating better and taking care of yourself. He is tall and imposing, no change there, but definitely more stooped than Jimmy remembers.

‘So,’ Sweeney says, not sitting down. ‘You know why I’m here.’

Jimmy stands up. ‘You want some coffee?’

‘Yeah, that’s why I’m here, Jimmy, I want some coffee.’

Jimmy sighs, sits back down. ‘Tell you the truth, Phil, I don’t know why you’re here. Unless you’ve got something new you want to talk about.’

‘Don’t get smart, Jimmy. This is serious shit and you’re in over your head.’

‘If it’s as serious as you say, Phil, then I think everyone’s in over their head.’

That sounds clever, but Jimmy isn’t really sure what it means.

‘Listen to me,’ Sweeney says, palms forward, switching gears. ‘Let’s back up here for a minute, yeah? Larry Bolger is not a well man. It’s pretty obvious he’s got a drink problem. There’s depression there, too. Adjustment issues. All I was trying to do was help him out.’

Jimmy says nothing, nods along.

‘So when he starts mouthing on about this or that, the past, making bizarre statements, like he did today, I think we can safely assume it’s the bottle talking, yeah? And to be honest with you, I didn’t realise he was that far gone.’

Looking at Sweeney, Jimmy feels a little strange. When he was younger, and the old man was still alive, Jimmy was in awe of Phil Sweeney, afraid of him even. When the old man was dying, and for a while afterwards, Sweeney was a big man in his life, a commanding presence. He exuded confidence and authority. You listened to him. You didn’t cross him.

Now Sweeney is stooped, tired-looking, maybe a little sick himself.

Now someone is about to cross him.

‘Phil,’ Jimmy says quietly, ‘we’ve been over it. On the phone. This isn’t about Larry Bolger. I’m not interested in Larry Bolger. I just want to look into what he said, check it out, see if there’s anything to it.’

Sweeney hesitates, then explodes. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jimmy, do you not get it? How many different ways do I have to say it? Back off. Leave it alone.’ He leans forward. ‘This isn’t for you.’

Jimmy stares at him in disbelief. ‘Don’t you see that telling me that only makes it worse?’

‘I’m warning you, Jimmy. For the last time. Jesus Christ.’ Sweeney is shouting now, pointing his finger. ‘And don’t forget something, you owe me.’

Jimmy stands up. ‘I do, yeah, but not this, Phil, I don’t owe you this. You helped me along, fine, and I’m grateful -’

‘Damn sure I helped you along, Jimmy. But I also played you like a fucking fiddle. Every story I fed you had an agenda, my agenda.’ Sweeney makes a sound here, a laugh, but it’s hard, mirthless. ‘And you were so easy. You were so eager to get ahead.’

Jimmy swallows. He’ll need a little time to process that one. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘for all the good it did me.’

‘Oh, and what, that’s my fault? Take some responsibility for yourself, would you?’ Sweeney glances around the room. ‘I mean, look at where you live. It’s a shithole. What do you think your old man would make of this?’

Jimmy stiffens. He doesn’t answer.

‘What do you think he’d make of you, now, today?’ Sweeney shakes his head. ‘Dec Gilroy. I’m telling you, there was a man who knew how to play the game, knew when to speak up and when to shut up.’

Jimmy takes a step forward. ‘Shut up about what, though? Something like this? I don’t think so, Phil. In fact, it was playing the game, playing your game, that made him sick in the first place, shutting up about stuff… but it was the small stuff, the tawdry stuff, the personal stuff, not anything like this.’ He pauses. ‘And tell me Phil, do you actually know what this is, what we’re talking about here?’

Phil Sweeney stares back at him. He doesn’t answer.

‘A helicopter crash, six people dead, but not an accident? That’s the allegation that came out of Larry Bolger’s mouth. And that’s what you want me to shut up about? That’s what you think Dec Gilroy would shut up about?’

‘Yeah, but come on, it’s ridiculous -’

‘Is it? I don’t know, Phil. I’ve already peeled away a layer or two and I’m not so sure.’ He pauses. ‘And how can you be so sure?’

‘Because -’

‘Who are you representing anyway? Not Larry Bolger surely, not directly. And I doubt that it’s Ted Walker’s family, so -’

‘Shut up.’

Jimmy is taken aback at this, but to his surprise he does shut up.

He turns around and goes back to the desk. He sits down.

There is silence for a while. Phil Sweeney remains standing in the middle of the room, swaying gently, almost imperceptibly, like a tall building.

Jimmy closes his eyes. An image comes to him, of the old man lying in his bed, gaunt, reduced, getting weaker by the day, diminishing, but never diminished…

Eventually, in a quiet voice, Phil Sweeney says, ‘What layers, Jimmy? Peeled away what layers? What have you…’

Jimmy opens his eyes, looks up, meets his gaze. ‘Just stuff, Phil. Leads.’ He lays a hand on some papers on the desk.

Phil Sweeney stares at him for a moment, then exhales loudly. He turns and heads for the door, slamming it shut as he leaves.

Jimmy moves his hand from the papers on the desk to the keyboard. He straightens up. He clicks a few keys and within seconds is on the Ryanair website checking out prices and times for a flight to Verona.

All through the function – the annual Leinster Vintners Society lunch – Larry Bolger feels horribly queasy. He’d forgotten that he promised to attend this and when Mary reminded him of it earlier he immediately started looking for a reason to cancel. But she was having none of it. He attends very few events these days, only the occasional dinner or speaking engagement, and Mary’s feeling is that he needs to get out more – especially after what happened yesterday, and especially if he wants to get back in the game, as he keeps saying.

But Bolger doesn’t understand why kick-starting this get-out-more policy has to coincide with his first hangover in a decade. Or is it his second already? A thick, extended hangover it is anyway, one laced with shame, anxiety, dread, and one that, just possibly, it’s beginning to feel, might never end. He doesn’t have to speak today, which is a gargantuan mercy, but he does have to smile and chat and act like he’s on the brink of staging a military coup in order to get this benighted country back on its feet.

He has to shake a lot of hands, and the comments come thick and fast.

You can’t beat Bolger.

Go on, you good thing.

But he gets through it, even managing to crack the odd joke himself.

The queasiness never lifts, though – and whenever the details of this bloody mess he’s created for himself pop into his head, which is about once every ten minutes, it actually intensifies. Talking to the young journalist was bad enough, but leaving that message for James Vaughan was insane. It remains to be seen what the consequences of any of this will be, but it’s hard to imagine that they won’t be extreme.

On the return journey, alone in the back of the state car – which is provided to him for life by the Irish taxpayer – Bolger reacquaints himself with that purest form of melancholy, the brittle, unforgiving, all-pervading kind that comes with an acute hangover. As he gazes out at the passing city, his city, he sees no route forward anymore, no plausible future for himself, nothing new beyond what he’s got, which is retirement and anonymity, and a curdling sense of his own worth.

Because his last act as a political animal may well prove to be that pathetic phone call to James Vaughan. Silence and exile maybe, but certainly not cunning.

I want a job… or else…

Vaughan isn’t going to take a threat like that seriously. He isn’t even going to dignify it with a response. But it also means that Bolger has effectively disqualified himself from consideration for any future employment opportunities – proper ones, at any rate. International ones. The only kind he’s interested in.

At the hotel, things are quiet and he manages to get across the lobby and into an elevator without having to engage with any staff members or random, excitable guests. On the way up it occurs to him that his hangover might actually be far enough along now for him to be in danger of… a little bit of…

Temptation.

A little bit of recidivism.

Very sweet, and very welcome.

Because frankly, what difference would it make?

Walking along the corridor, he feels his body chemistry stirring.

It would make a difference to Mary, he supposes, but maybe Mary is just going to have to get used to it.

Anyway, she’s out at the moment.

He gets to the door of the apartment and as he’s opening it he hears the phone ringing.

Shit.

He gets inside and grabs the cordless unit from the table.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr Bolger?’

‘Speaking.’

He doesn’t recognise the voice. Not many people have this number.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Bolger, my name is Bernard Lund from Adelphi Solutions in London.’

An accent. Australian, or maybe South African.

‘Who? Adel-’

‘Adelphi Solutions. We are an affiliate of the Jordan Group.’

The name’s vaguely familiar. He glances over at the drinks cabinet. ‘OK, Mr Lund.’

‘I am calling on behalf of a private client -’

Bolger’s eyes widen. ‘Sorry, what… private?’

‘Yes.’

There is brief silence.

‘And?’

‘Well, we were wondering if you would you be available to present for an interview on Monday of next week? In London?’

‘An interview?’

‘Yes, Mr Bolger. I am not at liberty to be more specific over the phone, as I’m sure you will appreciate, but our client is looking to promote a suitable candidate for a high-level position in a leading international regulatory agency.’

Ruth groans. ‘Not again.’

‘I got it,’ Conway says, and rolls out of the bed.

He was wide awake in any case.

Stomach jumping, head racing.

He wanders down the corridor and into Jack’s room, the small night lamp by the cot illuminating this cyclorama of Pooh and Piglet and Tigger.

Tiny face looking up.

Wide awake, too.

And displaying something like smug satisfaction. No sign of the distress he was clearly faking half a minute earlier.

Conway reaches down and pulls him up, rests his head on his shoulder.

Molly and Danny were always good sleepers. From day one, Jack was a nightmare.

Conway brings him downstairs. He heads towards the kitchen, but stops at the door, hesitates. It’s not a bottle Jack wants, it’s company, body heat, someone else’s pulse and rhythm.

He turns back. They go into the big reception room at the front.

Over to the window.

Conway looks out at the darkness, which is tinged now with the merest hint of blue. The tall trees beyond the lawn are swaying in the wind.

He can hear Jack breathing, a tiny whistle, back to sleep already.

So.

Where was he? Larry Bolger. Don Ribcoff. Susie Monaghan.

Fuck.

Couple out walking their dog.

Fuck.

Black Vine people on Monday, and a big part of what they want to talk about, apparently, is the First Continental deal.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It’s all going round in circles.

And he can’t make it stop.

He turns, wanders over to the sofa.

The jumping in his stomach won’t stop either. Which means he’s not going to get any sleep. A drink would smother it, but only for a while. Then he’d have to have another. And another.

It wouldn’t work.

Besides, it’s too late. Too close to morning.

In a way, he’d prefer to have a headache, because with a headache, you can’t think straight. It drowns everything out, blurs everything. With this, it’s different. What you’re thinking is what you’re feeling – in an objective correlative sort of way, each stabbing sensation a specific reminder of some awful fact or memory.

He sits down in the semi-darkness, settles Jack in his arms.

Swallows.

Earlier Ruth asked, in passing, why it was so long since they’d been to Guilbaud’s.

Conway laughed at her.

Doesn’t she get it?

The house here? The stables? This little bastard? His inheritance? Any sense of entitlement he might be expected to feel growing up? Let alone one more dinner at Guilbaud’s for Mum and Dad?

It’s all gone. It’s over.

Effectively.

Not that he said that to her, or anything like it, but maybe he should have. From the perspective of 4 a.m. it seems self-evident, undeniable.

It’s not her perspective, though. It’s his, and is based on stuff only he knows. It’s also a perspective he resolves not to carry with him through the weekend, resolves not to impose on Ruth, on the kids. This is partly because he’s aware he’d more than likely crack under the pressure. Which wouldn’t be pleasant, or edifying, for anyone.

And partly because he has to believe there’s still a chance.

Jimmy spends Saturday morning trawling websites for references to Gianni Bonacci and builds up quite a collection of articles and quotes, none of which he understands a word of. In the afternoon he goes and knocks on the door of the students’ apartment across the hall. The engineering one answers, looking tired and not a little bleary.

‘How’s it going?’ Rubbing his eyes. ‘Jimmy, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. Not bad, thanks. Er, I can’t remember your -’

‘Matt.’

‘Right. Is Finbarr around?’

The modern languages one.

‘Yeah, come on in.’

The place is in semi-darkness, windows closed, curtains drawn. The air is dense, toxic.

‘Sit down,’ Matt says, turning. ‘And, er, ’scuse the…’ He waves a hand around to indicate the entire apartment. ‘I’ll get Finbarr.’

Jimmy doesn’t sit. He looks down at a low table in front of the sofa – coffee mugs, sticky spoons, ashtrays, controllers, remotes, crushed cans, crisp packets, socks.

Last time he was in here was months ago, and it was late at night, and he was drunk.

He’s not drunk now and would very much like to leave.

‘Ciao, bello.’

He turns around to see Finbarr emerging from a bedroom. Sweats and a T-shirt, glasses, stubble, thick curly black hair.

Jimmy was going to ask Finbarr to translate a few things for him but now he decides against it.

Let Francesca do all the explaining.

‘Hi, Finbarr.’

‘What can I do you for at this ungodly hour?’ There’s a beat. ‘What time is it anyway?’

‘It’s three o’clock,’ Jimmy says. Another beat. ‘In the afternoon.’

A loud groan.

‘Miss something?’

Finbarr looks at him. ‘No, just… where does all the time go, you know?’

‘Tell me about it. Listen, I’m going to Italy on Monday morning and I was wondering if you’d keep an eye on the place for me.’

‘Sure.’

‘Thanks. Let me give you my mobile number.’

He takes a page from his notebook and writes it down.

Finbarr looks at it. ‘Where are you headed? What part?’

‘Verona. Flying to Treviso.’

‘Cool.’

‘Ever been there?’

‘Once. Day trip from Venice.’ He scratches his belly. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

They move towards the door.

‘So,’ Finbarr stifling a yawn, ‘what’s the scoop?’

Jimmy steps out into the corridor, turns around, looks at Finbarr. ‘The scoop? I’m not sure, to tell you the truth.’ He clicks his tongue. ‘Remains to be seen.’

At Mass on Sunday morning, during the homily – that Zen space between the Gospel and the Eucharist – Bolger goes over the situation one more time in his head. He thinks he’s got it figured out. James Vaughan has capitulated, but very much on his own terms. Which is typical of the man. He’s not folding outright, he’s playing a little hardball first, saying fine, you want a job that bad, here’s a job.

Now, it may not be what Bolger had in mind, he may even have to jump through a few hoops to get it, but – and this would seem to be Vaughan’s point – given Bolger’s behaviour of late, his recalcitrance, to put it mildly, isn’t running an international regulatory agency about as much as he can reasonably expect?

No real argument from Bolger there, and he can decipher the code, as well – do this right for a couple of years, behave, and who knows? Besides, it’s often performance at these quiet, under-the-radar jobs that really counts when it comes to choosing candidates for the bigger, more high-profile jobs later on.

Not to get ahead of himself or anything.

He glances around, at the congregation, up at the priest.

It still surprises Bolger that his own little bit of hardball actually paid off. It wasn’t so much a high-risk strategy, being honest about it, as sheer recklessness on his part. Still, Vaughan seems to have responded to it, and who knows, maybe even on some level respects him for it.

He’s trying to be low-key with Mary about the whole thing, to play it cool, but it’s not easy. After Mass, they’re having lunch in town with Lisa, and he won’t be able to resist telling her.

Of course, Bolger has no details yet, no idea of what the job will entail. Or of where they’ll be based.

Brussels, maybe, or Strasbourg.

Or London – given that that’s where the interview is taking place. In fact, he wouldn’t mind London at all, and is looking forward to his trip there tomorrow.

The priest wraps up his homily, turns from the lectern and walks back to the altar.

Bolger shuffles forward and kneels.

He isn’t superstitious, but he’s almost reluctant to admit it – this is the most excited, the most energised, he has felt in a long time.

Conway has been doing well all weekend, compartmentalising like fuck, spending some time with his family, and some with his legal team, but never enough with either, or with anyone else, to lose perspective. Until late on Sunday evening, that is, when the doorbell rings and he opens it to find Phil Sweeney standing there, looking – is Conway imagining it? – slightly the worse for wear.

‘Phil. This is a surprise.’

More than. It’s not like he’s ever told Phil Sweeney to drop by the house if he happened to be passing. Their relationship is a business one, conducted mainly over the phone or by e-mail. Down through the years, there have been sensitive issues, of course, and conversations that have occasionally crossed a shadowy line between the professional and the personal, but they’ve maintained their distance.

That’s not what this is.

‘Can I come in? Have a question I need to ask.’

Conway stands back, gets the tell-tale whiff from Sweeney’s breath as he passes.

They go into the main reception room. Conway automatically heads for where the booze is kept.

‘Drink?’

‘Yeah, whiskey.’ Some throat clearing. ‘Please.’

As Conway fixes the drinks, thinking maybe this isn’t such a good idea, Sweeney – standing right behind him – starts talking.

‘I can’t do anything about Jimmy Gilroy, Dave, I tried, he’s got his teeth into this thing, and… you said so yourself, he’s young, he thinks he’s Bob fucking Woodward, thinks he’s – I don’t know – on to something. But the thing is, and here’s my question, how could he be? On to something, I mean?’ Conway listening, not moving, bottle suspended over a glass. ‘I flagged this Susie Monaghan thing for you because my understanding is that you don’t want anything out there drawing attention to the First Continental deal. Which means the conference. Which means that weekend. And which also means, for whatever reason – I never asked, but you were very clear about it at the time – her.’

Conway pours a measure into the glass, turns around and hands it to Sweeney.

He doesn’t say anything.

‘I assumed you’d had a thing with her, didn’t want connections being made.’

What is this?

‘And?’

‘Now Larry Bolger is…’

‘Larry? Jesus, Phil, have you gone soft in the head? The man is demented. He’s delusional.’

‘Isn’t that supposed to be my line, Dave?’

‘Yeah, well, why aren’t you sticking to it?’

‘Because… I don’t know…’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know what’s real here and what isn’t, what’s spin and what’s truth.’

‘I thought that was the whole point, Phil. Of Marino Communications. Of you. Of why we all pay you so much.’

‘For the little stuff, maybe, expense sheets and zipper trouble, for papering over the cracks, but this…’ He shrugs, shakes his head, searching for the words.

‘This, Phil?’

‘Something about this stinks to high heaven.’

Conway’s had enough, and snaps. He swipes the glass out of Sweeney’s hand. ‘Get out of my house, Phil. And you know what? I don’t think I’ll need your services anymore. Consider yourself fired.’ He puts the glass down. ‘Go on, get out.’

Sweeney stares at him. ‘So Jimmy’s on the right track, is that what you’re telling me?’

‘I’m not telling you anything, Phil. You can choose to believe whatever shit you like. That’s what you do best, isn’t it?’

Sweeney flinches. ‘Fuck you, Dave.’ He turns and walks out of the room.

A few seconds later, Conway hears the hall door slamming shut. He reaches around for the drink he took from Sweeney. He knocks it back in one go. He pours another one and knocks that back. Then he notices the one he poured for himself and knocks that back, too.

7

JIMMY DOESN’T E-MAIL FRANCESCA BONACCI AGAIN until he arrives in Treviso on Monday morning. This is deliberate. He wants to exert a little pressure – both on her and on himself. He tells her he’s getting a train to Verona and will be there by early afternoon. Can they meet? Can he call by? Talk to her mother?

He sends this while he’s still in the airport terminal.

Then, in the taxi and on the train, he keeps checking for a reply, until he remembers that she’s seventeen and is probably still at school.

He has the phone number, but decides to wait a while before using it, at least until he’s settled somewhere, in a hotel or a pensione.

At this point he allows himself to take it easy for a bit. He sits back, looks out of the window and registers, almost for the first time, that he’s in Italy.

The views flitting past are a curious mix – lush countryside and dense pockets of industrial activity, rolling green hills and boxy grey factory units. As the train snakes into the city, this gives way to another curious mix – dusty, high-rise apartment blocks and elegant two-storey villas with pink slate roofing and green shutters.

He gets a taxi from the station into the city centre. It takes no more than five minutes. He could have easily walked it, but he didn’t know. This is because he omitted to do any travel research before leaving Dublin, a situation he now rectifies by stopping at a newsstand and buying a guidebook.

It’s a beautiful day, sunny and warm, and as he sits on a bench in Piazza Bra, beneath the cedar trees, looking through the gushing fountain to the Arena, Jimmy wonders what he’s doing here. He has a very limited budget and his grand plan doesn’t seem to extend a whole lot beyond doorstepping Gianni Bonacci’s widow.

But what choice does he have? What other course of action was open to him? None that he can think of. Because talking on the phone and exchanging e-mails wasn’t ever going to be enough. To get at the truth, you need eye contact, body language. Especially with a story like this. In any case, he’ll give it a couple of days, and see. Maybe something will come of it. Maybe nothing will.

Isn’t that how it works?

He flicks through the guidebook and marks down three possible places to stay.

He walks along Via Mazzini, a narrow pedestrianised street of luxury boutiques and jewellery shops. This leads onto another piazza, one dominated by an enormous medieval tower.

He keeps wandering, and consulting the map in his guidebook, until he eventually finds the first of the three hotels. It’s fine – cheap and clean – and when he’s checked in he falls on the bed and dozes for a while. Then he takes a shower.

At about five o’clock, an e-mail arrives from Francesca.

She seems slightly alarmed that he’s here and says she’ll have to talk with her mother first, before anything can happen.

Jimmy replies, giving her his mobile number. Then he flops onto the bed again, and waits. He turns on the TV and flicks around for a while, but there’s no CNN or Sky, just what seem like local channels, with endless ads, cartoons and chat shows. None of which he can follow. After about twenty minutes, his mobile rings.

He reaches over and grabs it. ‘Hello?’

‘Mr Gilroy?’

‘Yes. Hi. Francesca.’

‘Hi. Mr Gilroy. How are you?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ He shunts over and sits up on the edge of the bed. ‘But please, call me Jimmy.’

‘OK. Jimmy.’

‘And how are you?’

‘I am well. Thank you. Jimmy.’

‘Good, good.’ This is awkward. He stands up. ‘So?’

‘Er, allora, I spoke with my mother, and -’

‘Yes?’

Jimmy braces himself.

‘She would like to invite you to dinner. At our house. For this evening. If you are free.’

Sitting in the back of a black taxi, as it inches its way along Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square, Bolger sends Mary a quick text. He tells her he’s arrived and is on his way to the hotel. Over the weekend, they’d talked about her coming with him, for moral support, but they eventually decided against it. Bolger’s exclusive focus, they agreed, should be on the interview. All going to plan, however, there’s no reason they couldn’t both come over in the near future, and do some shopping, or maybe even, if appropriate, a spot of house hunting.

The traffic in London this morning is heavy and the weather is unseasonably warm. Bolger feels a headache coming on.

When he gets to the hotel in Bloomsbury he takes a quick shower and then goes over some notes he made. The interview is at three o’clock. It’s in another hotel, somewhere in Knightsbridge.

Though really, interview.

It’s not quite how he sees it, not quite the word he’d use.

A process maybe, a getting-to-know-you type of thing.

Terms and conditions.

He’s never actually sat for a job interview before. Unless you count getting elected. Multiple times. The closest he’s probably ever come was that lunch in the Wilson, which -

Oh.

He sees it now. Another hotel. A certain symmetry.

The hand of Vaughan.

Well, whatever. He’ll do what he has to do. The jobs pool for ex-prime ministers isn’t that big. There also tends to be a window for these things and he hasn’t exactly been making the best use of his time. The manner in which he was forced to relinquish office didn’t help either, of course. And he’ll admit it now, he left in a huff. He withdrew from public life altogether, wouldn’t give interviews, didn’t take a staff with him. It wasn’t a good strategy. It wasn’t a strategy at all. The two things he did do were lobby for that IMF job and sign the contract to write his memoirs – but look how he got on with both of those.

So in a sense this is a reprieve – a second chance, maybe even a last chance – and he’s determined not to squander it. He’s still quite nervous, though. And with good reason. He might have dodged one bullet, from Vaughan, but there are others out there – that thing in the paper last week, the couple out walking their dog, and then the young journalist he shot his mouth off to. That was an extraordinary lapse of judgement. OK, he’d been drinking, but when was that ever a valid excuse? Anyway, he’s heard nothing about it since, and can only suppose that Dave Conway has taken the matter in hand.

Bolger has a light lunch in the hotel restaurant. Then he freshens up – shaves, changes – and gets ready to go.

As the porter is hailing him a cab, a text message arrives from Mary, wishing him luck. In the cab he sends her one back, saying that he doesn’t need luck, he has her. Bolger doesn’t often get sentimental, but he’s not a fool either, he appreciates what he’s got in Mary, the love, the attentiveness, the unquestioning support. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to function. Without it, his career would have gone belly-up years ago.

The hotel in Knightsbridge is called the Marlow and is a boutique establishment owned – Bolger is assuming – by the Oberon Capital Group. It’s a medium-sized modern building sandwiched in between two ugly redbrick residential piles typical of this part of London.

He enters the lobby, which is spacious and very chic, a swirl of design elements he couldn’t possibly absorb at a single glance. He approaches the desk and is greeted by the receptionist, an attractive young woman in a discreet uniform. She is blonde and has bright blue eyes.

And blood-red lipstick.

‘Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to the Marlow.’

And a slightly haughty English accent of the kind that Bolger, as an Irishman of a certain age, still finds it impossible, somewhere deep inside himself, not to be intimidated by.

‘Good afternoon.’ He clears his throat. ‘Er… for Mr Lund. I’m Mr Bolger.’

‘Oh yes, Mr Bolger, of course. Would you care to take a seat?’ She indicates an area next to a decorative reflection pond in the centre of the lobby. ‘Mr Lund will be with you shortly.’

‘Thank you.’

He turns away from the desk and glances around. Then he walks over towards the reflection pond.

When he was Taoiseach, Bolger would never have found himself alone at a location like this. There would always have been staff, civil servants, advisors, not to mention a security detail.

You wouldn’t get a former British PM wandering around alone. It’s a difference in scale, he supposes, between the two countries. Or a question of resources. Until recently, the Irish state provided round-the-clock security outside the homes of its former leaders. Then, for whatever reason, they decided to pull the plug.

He’s lucky he still has the state car.

‘Excuse me.’

Bolger turns around. Standing there with his hand extended is a pale young man in his late twenties.

‘Mr Bolger? I am Bernard Lund.’

‘Mr Lund.’

They shake. Lund is certainly young but he seems terribly serious. He’s wearing a grey suit and a blue tie. He’s got rimless glasses on and is practically bald. He’s also wearing a tiny wireless ear-piece.

‘Would you come this way, please?’

Bolger follows. They head towards the elevators.

They wait in silence. An elevator door opens, some people come out, Bolger and Lund step in.

Lund presses eight.

‘So, Mr Lund,’ Bolger says, ‘what is the procedure here this afternoon?’

Lund turns slightly. ‘A senior representative from Adelphi Solutions will see you in our executive suite. Any questions you have, you may address to him.’

Very clipped. Definitely South African.

The elevator hums open and they step out into a long, empty corridor. Lund leads the way.

They stop at a room near the end of the corridor. Lund swipes a card and they go in.

Unlike that time at the Wilson, the room is empty, not a senator or a Nobel laureate in sight. Bolger looks around. They are in a contemporary living area, with a modern brushed-steel fireplace in front of which there is a glass coffee table and some black leather armchairs.

Lund indicates for Bolger to sit down.

‘Our representative will be with you shortly.’

Bolger sighs at hearing this, and sits down.

Shortly? Who are these people? He looks at his watch and wonders what the chances are of getting a cup of tea.

He turns to see Bernard Lund over by the door, mobile at his ear.

Bolger takes out his own mobile and switches it to silent.

When he looks back, Lund has gone.

Bolger sits there for a while, in the stillness and the silence. Five minutes pass, ten minutes. He eventually stands up, walks around, stretches his legs.

Every now and again he glances over at the door.

Thinking, this is ridiculous.

When it reaches the thirty-minute mark, he decides he’s had enough. He won’t be taken for a fool.

Because what is this? Some kind of a joke on Vaughan’s part?

He heads for the door.

Jimmy has no difficulty finding the address. It’s in Via Grimaldi, a dark, narrow street behind Piazza Erbe. A lot of the city centre is pedestrianised, but not this street. The footpath is barely wide enough to accommodate a single pedestrian and as you walk along there’s a constant stream of cars rushing past. It’s not a stretch you’d want to find yourself on after a few drinks.

The entrance to the apartment building where the Bonaccis live is a high, arched wooden doorway. He presses their buzzer and is let in. The contrast between the street outside and the courtyard in here is quite striking. There are colonnades, hanging flower baskets and, in the centre, what looks like an old stone well.

There is a stairway to the left and Jimmy goes up two flights. Here, at an open door, he is greeted by a slim, studious-looking teenage girl in jeans and a black T-shirt.

‘Francesca?’

‘Hello.’ She nods, extends her hand. ‘Jimmy.’

They shake, and she leads him into a small entrance hall.

‘May I present my mother,’ Francesca says, as an elegant woman in her mid-forties appears from behind her.

Jimmy steps forward and shakes hands with Signora Bonacci. He can see the resemblance straightaway, same eyes, cheekbones, mouth. She is casually dressed as well, though more expensively than her daughter, and with more jewellery. Her smile is open and friendly, but there is something guarded about her – naturally enough, Jimmy supposes, letting a stranger into her house, and a journalist at that.

‘It’s very kind of you to see me,’ he says. ‘Signora Bonacci.’

Francesca laughs – at his pronunciation, he assumes. ‘You can call her Pina,’ she says. ‘Everybody does.’

Jimmy looks at her. ‘Pina?’

‘It’s short for Giuseppina.’

‘And of course,’ her mother adds, ‘it’s easier to pronounce.’

‘Ah, you do speak English.’

‘A little. Francesca is better at it.’ She smiles again. ‘I understand… most… of things.’

‘OK, that’s good, because I would like to explain myself.’

‘Yes, but… please,’ Pina Bonacci says, indicating for him to follow her.

They move to the main living area, which is bright and spacious, with marble floors and high ceilings. There are some modern touches – a plasma TV, metal-grey bookshelves and track lighting – but the room has a conservative, old-fashioned feel to it.

They sit in chintzy sofas around a low antique table. In the middle of the table there is a glass bowl filled with fruit.

‘Once again,’ Jimmy says, ‘thank you for seeing me.’ In as straight a way as possible, he then explains who he is and what he is doing. He makes no great claims for himself and is clear about his reasons for coming. He really has nothing to offer them, he says, except for a series of questions. And he makes no promises either, except to say that he will go wherever their answers take him.

Pina Bonacci nods along to most of this, and Jimmy is fairly certain that she understands him. Francesca remains still, with her head down.

When he finishes speaking, she looks up. ‘So. These questions. What are they?’

Jimmy shifts his position slightly on the sofa. He’s not sure what to make of her tone. ‘Well, first of all, Francesca, I know very little about your father. Can you tell me what he was like?’

There is silence for a moment. Then the mother and daughter turn to each other, and smile.

Jimmy is relieved at this.

‘Gianni was a good man,’ Pina says, looking at him. ‘A good husband and father.’ She turns back to Francesca. ‘Husband, giusto?’

Francesca nods, and then laughs. ‘Mamma, dai.’

Jimmy stares at them both. They’re a good double act. This could have been quite difficult, but so far they seem on a fairly even keel. If anything, Francesca is the more unpredictable of the two, the harder one to read.

‘My father was very serious,’ she says, and smiles again. ‘Like me.’

She certainly looks serious, with her glasses and hair pulled back into a ponytail. Jimmy imagines that the ordeal she went through three years ago must have accelerated the growing up process quite a bit.

At the same time, it appears, she can be quite playful.

‘Serious in what way?’ he says. ‘Your father, I mean.’

Over the next thirty minutes or so, taking it in turns, both in English and Italian – sometimes translated for him, sometimes not – Francesca and Pina talk breathlessly about their Gianni. Jimmy gets the impression that this is something they’ve maybe wanted and needed to do for some considerable time, but just haven’t had the right audience, the right opportunity – which he’s now providing, and they’re seizing on with barely contained glee. He wonders what it is, the mechanism here – is it the fact that he’s a foreigner and this somehow gives them a licence to talk freely, as though it doesn’t really count? Or is it him, what Maria Monaghan called his sympathetic face? Possibly a bit of both, not that it matters.

The point is, they’re talking.

Though so far it’s all been about Gianni Bonacci’s life, nothing about his death. They tell him he was passionate about movies and jazz, that he inherited hundreds of albums from his own father, Blue Note LPs with all the original cover art, that there’s an annual jazz festival here at the Teatro Romano and Gianni never missed a gig; that he was a great cook, did the best porcini risotto you’ve ever tasted; and wine – o dio mio – how Gianni loved his wine; but that he was also sporty, and went cycling and skiing.

At one point, Francesca gets up and retrieves some photos from a drawer to show Jimmy: Gianni with her, with Pina, with both of them, Gianni on the slopes of Madonna di Campiglio, Gianni in an office, at a restaurant, outside the UN Headquarters in New York, Gianni in a jeep somewhere, by a river, up a mountain.

‘He travelled a lot, for his work,’ Francesca says, as she hands him another picture.

Jimmy remembers Gary Lynch’s description of Bonacci… what was it, short and weedy? From here, that seems a little unfair. He’s not tall, and his thick black-rimmed glasses make him look a bit nerdy, but the image Jimmy is getting of the man from his wife and daughter is an altogether more rounded one than that.

It occurs to Jimmy then that any mention of Susie Monaghan will have to be handled very delicately.

‘Tell me about his work,’ he says.

‘Well, my father was an employee of l’ONU, the UN. He worked for the Directorate of Ethics in Geneva, but had an office in Milan. He went to many conferences and visited… sites, industrial plants, all over the world. He was responsible for formulating policy and procedures on corporate ethics. Accountability, implementation, that sort of thing.’ She pauses. ‘He was a lawyer, of Criminal Justice, but also had degrees in Organisational Psychology and Labour Relations.’

Jimmy gets the impression that this isn’t the first time she’s reeled off these facts.

‘He was very well respected.’

‘I’m sure he was. Of course. I have no doubt.’

‘But,’ Pina Bonacci leans forward. ‘He had, er…’ She turns and whispers something to Francesca, who whispers something back. Then she faces Jimmy again. ‘He had enemies. He made enemies. Because of his work.’

Jimmy nods. ‘Can you elaborate on that?’

Pina remains hunched forward, searching for the words. She seems pained.

Definite mood shift.

‘He had no real power, but…’ Clicking her fingers, she turns to Francesca and releases a torrent of Italian. Francesca listens, then takes a deep breath and looks at Jimmy. ‘The Directorate of Ethics couldn’t enforce change or impose new practices on corporations, but their reports could create pressures, public relations pressures. In certain cases, these could be – were, in fact – extremely damaging.’

‘I see.’

‘Contracts were cancelled. Losses were incurred.’

Jimmy looks at her. Something is either very close here, or it isn’t. The answer Francesca gives to his next question is either going to be very specific or maddeningly vague.

He suspects he knows which.

‘Francesca,’ he says, leaning forward, ‘can you trace a direct line between the two, between something your father ever wrote or said and one of these examples of, let’s call it… corporate discontent?’

She shrugs. ‘Did you not look at that link I sent you?’

‘Yeah, I did, of course.’ He pauses, sighs. ‘Well, sort of. It was in Italian, Francesca.’

‘OK.’ She holds up a hand. ‘One second.’ She and Pina then exchange another few rapid, labyrinthine sentences. When they’ve finished, Pina stands up. ‘Jimmy, I hope you like, er…’ She looks at Francesca. ‘Frutti di mare?’

‘Seafood.’

She looks back at Jimmy. ‘I hope you like seafood.’

He nods. ‘Yes, absolutely.’

‘Good. Now, please excuse me.’ She turns and heads over towards what Jimmy sees through an open door is the kitchen.

Then Francesca stands up as well. ‘Wait here a moment,’ she says. ‘I will get my laptop.’

Sitting across from Dave Conway are three pink-faced little pricks in expensive suits and sober ties. Spread out before them on the glass table are BlackBerrys and bottles of water, though no laptops – that’s because there won’t be any third degree here today, no advanced interrogation techniques. It’s all meant to be informal and getting-to-know-you. Black Vine Partners is a Philadelphia-based private equity fund and these boys – which is what they are – have flown in to ‘scope out’ Conway Holdings.

It’s just that Dave Conway is in no mood this afternoon to be scoped out.

Hollowed out is more how he feels.

That whiskey he drank last night after Phil Sweeney left – the three original shots followed by another four or five – certainly took their toll. When he got up this morning he felt like shit and the feeling hasn’t really lifted.

All day, too, he’s been trying to calculate the cost of pissing Phil Sweeney off. Traditionally, Sweeney has been the great buffer zone between bad things happening, and how, when or even if those bad things show up in the news cycle – so he’s not someone you want to have outside of your tent, unzipping his fly.

But then again, in his hungover state, Conway can no longer even be sure there is a tent.

Across the table, Black Vine’s Director of Investor Relations, the pink-faced little prick in the middle, is delivering a tedious monologue on the European debt crisis.

Conway is only half listening. His sense of things falling apart is too acute now for any of this to matter. Even if he manages to get the investment money from these guys, which is doubtful, it won’t stem the tide. Susie Monaghan is out there, Larry Bolger is out there, this Jimmy Gilroy is out there… not to mention all the lies and misinformation, all the suspicion and paranoia.

He closes his eyes.

Everyone running for cover. It’s been building for days. And what was his solution? In the circumstances? It was only a two-minute phone call, but the more he replays it in his head, the less it makes sense to him.

‘Mr Conway?’

Because what did he imagine it was going to achieve? In fact, what on earth was he thinking?

‘Mr Conway?’

And what on earth – for that matter – was he thinking three years ago when he last spoke to Don Ribcoff?

‘Mr Conway?’

‘Yeah.’ He opens his eyes. ‘What?’

The Director of Investor Relations is smiling at him, but it’s a smile of bewilderment. ‘We were wondering,’ he says, reaching for his bottle of water, ‘if you could tell us something about the sale of First Continental Resources to BRX?’

Conway looks at him, and then at the others. These guys are at it now, too? Martin Boyle had warned him that they’d want to talk about this, but suddenly their interest seems a little pointed. What do they want to know? And why?

He shrugs. ‘It was… a straightforward deal. Nothing special.’

‘Oh come now, Mr Conway, a hundred million dollars for a disused copper mine?’ He half turns, for support, to the guy on his left. ‘There must be an interesting story behind that.’

Oh come now? This irritates the shit out of Conway and he can feel any sense of perspective he’s supposed to have slipping away. He’s just glad that Martin Boyle isn’t in the room. ‘Well, if there is,’ he says, ‘you’re not going to hear it.’

‘Excuse me?’

Where would he begin in any case? It’s not something that easily lends itself to being told as an anecdote – which was true from the start, even long before that interfering little bastard Gianni Bonacci entered the equation.

‘It’s not something I wish to discuss.’

‘It’s not -’ The Director of Investor Relations leans forward, barely able to conceal his disbelief. ‘Can you explain that? I don’t understand.’

Conway leans forward to meet him. ‘There’s nothing to understand. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Oh.’

The three little pricks turn to each other, muttering and pulling confused faces.

‘But Mr Conway,’ the one on the right then says, ‘this is your party piece. Nothing else you’ve got distinguishes you in any way. If we don’t hear this’ – he clicks his tongue – ‘we’re not hearing anything.’

Conway nods his head in silence for a while. ‘Right,’ he says eventually, ‘I guess this meeting is over then.’

As Bolger opens the door of the hotel room and steps out into the corridor, he feels a certain measure of relief. This is uncharted territory here and it’d be very easy to make a mistake, to rush into something he’d later regret. On reflection, what he should have done was play a longer game, more hardball, make it so that he was calling the shots. He should have asked for details, the terms and conditions, got them to sweat for a bit.

Another couple of days at least.

In any case, this messing around, the waiting – it has helped him to make up his mind.

And it’s fine.

Though as he walks along the corridor, his irritation increases.

Shortly.

What was he, waiting at the dentist’s? After all, he’s a former prime minister, a retired national leader. Isn’t that deserving of a little respect? Not that he means this in an arrogant way, or that he’s brimming over with self-belief or anything. In fact, he has as much of a store of self-loathing and Catholic guilt as the next man – the next Irishman, at any rate – but these Adelphi people wouldn’t know that. They wouldn’t be aware of his personal failings, or of the torment he’s been suffering recently.

So there’s no reason he can’t just look them in the eye and tell them where to get off.

He arrives at the elevator and is about to press the button when he hears someone calling his name.

He turns around.

It’s Bernard Lund, walking towards him.

‘Wait, please.’

Where did he come from?

‘What is it?’ Bolger says, and looks at his watch. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘Please, Mr Bolger. You must accept my apologies.’

‘I don’t think so. I’ve been sitting in that bloody room for half an hour.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry, but -’ He turns away, holding one hand up and pressing the other to his ear, the one with the wireless device in it. ‘I’m just… yes.’ He turns back. ‘Our representative is arriving now.’

Bolger sighs. ‘This is unacceptable, you know.’

‘Yes, and I apologise, but there has been some delay with traffic. An accident, I believe.’ He nods his head at the elevator. ‘They’re coming now.’

Bolger turns and sees the pulsating green light.

A moment later the elevator door hums open.

Two men in suits emerge, one tall and thin with grey hair, the other one short, stocky and with a buzz cut. The first weird thing that Bolger notices is that neither of them looks directly at him. The tall, grey-haired one makes eye contact with Lund and seems to be trying to communicate something to him. The stocky one just keeps his head down. He also remains at the elevator, holding the door open with his arm.

That’s the second weird thing that Bolger notices.

But for sheer, unalloyed weirdness it is nothing compared to what happens over the next few seconds.

Bernard Lund glances over his shoulder at the still-empty corridor and turns back. Then, as Bolger is about to say something, to ask him what the hell is going on, Lund makes a sudden forward movement, pushes up against him, arms outstretched as though about to lock him in sort of a bear hug. Pushing against him in the same way, but from behind, is the tall, grey-haired man, who proceeds to restrain Bolger by putting an arm around his neck.

What the -

Bolger struggles, splutters, unable to speak. He is helpless, sandwiched between these two bodies. But then, for a fleeting moment – force and resistance in perfect balance – everything is still. He can hear them breathing. He can smell their cologne. He just can’t move.

Or understand.

Or think.

He feels a sudden extra stab of pressure in his lower back and a second later is released, the two men stepping away, peering around them, breathing heavily.

Bolger looks down at the carpet, shakes his head, says nothing. He doesn’t know what it is, but something makes him realise there’s nothing to say.

There’ll be no talking here.

Or eye contact.

Besides, he’s feeling dizzy now, and doesn’t want to talk.

He looks up, and around.

Lund and the tall, grey-haired man are already halfway along the corridor. The short stocky man with the buzz cut is still at the elevator. He holds out his free hand to Bolger and beckons him over.

Bolger feels dopey all of a sudden, and sluggish, a bit stupid even. He complies, steps over. The man with the buzz cut takes him by the elbow and guides him into the elevator car. The man then reaches in, presses a button and withdraws.

Bolger turns and stands gazing out. The now empty hotel corridor stretches off, it seems, to infinity, and as the elevator door closes, cutting off his view, he starts to feel a tremendous weight bearing in on his chest.

It turns out that the most recent stuff on the website Francesca shows Jimmy is at least two years old, and that any references he came across over the weekend on other websites were merely rehashed versions of what’s on this one. With a bit of gentle prodding, he also finds out from Francesca that today is the first time in over a year, possibly longer, that she and Pina have talked to anyone about the circumstances surrounding Gianni’s death – which maybe explains why they’re so eager to talk about it now. After the crash, there was a flurry of activity, people online and in the mainstream media speculating, theorising, asking questions, but a combination of the brick wall in Dublin and a battening down of the corporate hatches generally meant that no answers were ever forthcoming. Then the questions started to peter out. They finally stopped altogether and this long period of silence followed.

The stuff that is on the website relates mainly to a report Gianni wrote about three pharmaceutical companies – only one of which, as far as Jimmy can remember, was represented at the conference in Drumcoolie Castle. And the one that was there – from what he understands after a cursory glance at the report – would have been the least culpable in terms of any criticisms Gianni had made, and therefore the least likely to have wanted or needed to silence him.

When Jimmy points this out, Francesca makes the entirely reasonable point that neither of the other two companies, if they’d been intent on assassinating Gianni, would have necessarily had to have an official presence at the conference.

Indeed.

Except that it’s not a reasonable point at all. It’s more of a tipping point in fact, one between evidence-based supposition and classic paranoid theorising. Because there simply isn’t enough evidence here. Nor is Jimmy convinced of the basic premise anyway, that corporations go around assassinating people who criticise them. ‘And since the report was already out,’ he says, hammering the point home, ‘wouldn’t it have been too late anyway, a case of closing the stable door…’ Francesca looks at him, brow furrowed. ‘… after the horse has bolted.’

He then starts to explain the phrase, but she quickly nods, yes, yes, yes, and after a moment says what he takes to be its equivalent in Italian.

But now, having traded idioms, they fall into an awkward silence. Because with remarkable ease, he has undermined the basis of their suspicions and also more or less debunked what he himself came here hoping to find out in the first place.

The awkwardness continues as they move over to the table and start dinner.

When Francesca fills her mother in on what she and Jimmy have been saying, Pina shrugs and seems unfazed.

Francesca argues with her, making gestures, rolling her eyes. Pina responds in kind. It gets heated.

Jimmy puts his head down, and concentrates on the plate of pasta in front of him, spaghetti with mussels and clams. If he was looking for a distraction, he has certainly found one, because this is delicious. He wants to compliment Pina on it but the moment doesn’t seem right.

After a while, Francesca turns to him. She sighs dramatically. ‘Look, Pina is not so much concerned about a… what is that expression, a smoking gun?’

Jimmy nods.

‘Because she knows Gianni, knew Gianni, and is in no doubt that he was in danger in Ireland. His death only confirmed this.’

‘How does she know -’ Jimmy stops and turns to Pina. ‘How do you know that he was in danger?’

‘Because he told me.’

He looks at her, fork suspended over his plate. ‘Told you how?’

‘On the phone. We spoke. Every day.’

Jimmy waits. ‘And?’

Pina hesitates. She and Francesca exchange a look. Then Francesca turns to Jimmy. ‘The day before the crash Gianni said that he had discovered something. He was excited about it, but also angry. He said that just knowing what he knew put him in a very dangerous position.’

She takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly.

Again, Jimmy waits for more. ‘So? What was it?’

‘We don’t know. He didn’t say. He didn’t want to be specific over the phone.’

Jimmy puts his fork down. ‘There’s no mention of this anywhere, Francesca, at least not that I’ve seen. Not on that website, or in any of the reports.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She shrugs. ‘We did tell the police, here and in Ireland, again and again, but they ignored it, they said it wasn’t relevant. Gianni died in a crash, an accident, along with five others. And what we were saying, what we were implying, according to them, was ridiculous. They didn’t investigate anything.’

There is silence for a while. Then Pina says something to Francesca. She speaks quietly, and takes her time about it. After another silence Francesca turns to Jimmy. ‘My mother says she’s not a conspiracy theorist, she’s not obsessed with this, she’s not crazy. She just believes what her husband told her… and from everything she has seen and heard over the years, she also believes that none of this is implausible.’

Jimmy nods along, feeling a sudden weight of responsibility. ‘Of course. Of course.’

‘But I’m different,’ Francesca continues. ‘I am a little crazy, as you can see. I want to know the truth.’

‘That’s not crazy,’ Jimmy says, and pauses. ‘I want to know the truth, as well.’

But do they have anything? Not really. Pina’s conviction, based on… what? Love, trust, experience? And the claims of a drunken fool based on he doesn’t know what. Guilt? Maybe, but that’s not enough.

A smoking gun is precisely what they do need.

So far Jimmy has been very circumspect here about anything he might know – he hasn’t mentioned Larry Bolger, for instance, and isn’t going to – but he decides now to throw out at least some of what he’s got.

He turns to Pina. ‘Did Gianni mention any names when he spoke to you? People he was meeting. Clark Rundle, for instance?’

Pina considers this, but shakes her head.

‘Don Ribcoff?’

‘No.’

Francesca cuts in, ‘Who are these people?’

‘Just other delegates, at the conference, people he -’

‘Wait,’ Pina says. ‘Maybe. Say those names again.’

He repeats them.

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘On a business card, perhaps. Clark Rundle. It’s a strange name. Funny.’ She turns to Francesca again and talks in Italian. When Francesca is ready she turns back to Jimmy.

‘Gianni’s briefcase, and some clothes. That’s all we have left of my father, from Ireland. In the briefcase he had some documents, and business cards. He always had so many.’ She nods back at Pina. ‘Maybe she saw that name on one of those.’ She pauses. ‘But who is this person?’

Jimmy ignores the question. ‘Do you still have the briefcase?’

‘Of course.’

He leans forward. ‘Can I see it?’

Francesca and Pina look at each other.

The briefcase is quite small, a black leather doctor’s bag. Pina handles it with great care. She carries it across the room and places it on the free end of the table and opens it. From the main compartment she takes out a sheaf of documents. At a glance, Jimmy sees that they are on UN-headed paper and are in Italian. From a smaller front compartment, she takes out a handful of business cards and puts them down in front of him.

He picks them up and starts flicking through them.

‘The police looked at this stuff,’ Francesca says, ‘but it was… two minutes. They didn’t care. They didn’t see any point.’

‘What about his cell phone?’ Jimmy asks, flicking through more cards. ‘His laptop?’

‘No. They were… the police said they must have been destroyed in the crash.’

Jimmy stops, holds up a card. ‘Clark Rundle.’

He studies it. Chairman and CEO of BRX Mining & Engineering Corporation.

He flips it over.

There is something handwritten on the back of it.

Jimmy tries to make out what it says, but can’t. The handwriting is illegible. Francesca takes the card from him and looks at it. She shakes her head.

‘Can you make it out?’

‘Yes,’ she says, staring at the card. ‘I think it’s a name.’ She pauses. ‘Dave… Conway?’

As the elevator descends, Larry Bolger presses his hands very hard against his chest to try and relieve the pain.

It doesn’t work.

He’s in shock.

Fuck.

Did…?

Where is he again? London. Why London? Oh yeah, that inter… international regulatory… something…

But -

In his stomach now too, there’s an intense… sensation. He looks up… the numbers…

Falling, sinking… into…

2008.

The top job, at last, seal of office, seal of approval, two fingers to all his critics down through the years, nothing like it.

Falling, sinking.

1999.

First time in cabinet, though not ready for it, not ready at all, no, drowning in a sea of whiskey and self-pity, and what’s-her-name, Avril Byrne.

Falling.

1983.

How many was it… over six thousand first-preference votes, elected on the first count, hoisted up in the air, to deafening cheers… but he was only three months back from Boston at that point, still in a tailspin over Frank, and still clutching at the straws of what he’d been forced to leave behind, that other life, with all its golden possibilities, unfulfilled now, and unfulfillable… dimming, dimmed, his lost trajectory…

Falling…

1968.

Brother Cornelius, looming in a dank, musty corridor, chalk dust on his soutane and a leather strap hiding in his pocket, waiting to be whipped out, like a dark, brooding, permanent erection…

Sinking…

1964.

At a match in Croke Park with Frank and the old man, but feeling left out, excluded, unable to join in any of the conversation, and not tall enough either to see a fucking thing, first time he properly remembers that sensation, though not the last…

His stomach, plummeting…

But then it stops.

And the door slides open. He staggers forward, out into the lobby, hands still pressing at his chest, holy Jesus, the pain… and the people, pointing, standing aside and murmuring… their plummy voices, I say, look, look…

1957.

Dadda, mamma… brudder…

Falling.

1954.

D.O.B.

When Dave Conway pulls into the driveway and sees that Ruth’s car is there he leans forward and rests his head on the steering wheel.

Damn.

He managed to avoid Martin Boyle after the meeting by going down the stairs and slipping out a side exit of the building, but given the choice now – an hour or two with his lawyer or the next ten minutes with his wife – he’d happily head back into the arms of his lawyer.

Ruth knew the meeting with the Black Vine people was important, but she didn’t know it was critical. Now Conway is going to have to explain to her both that it was critical and that he blew it.

And that consequently…

He doesn’t know.

He straightens up. He gets out of the car.

Ruth isn’t stupid, she’s just never paid that much attention to her husband’s financial affairs. When they met, he was already running several successful businesses and she never felt the need to interrogate him about it. So she’ll understand.

But the thing is, she won’t forgive him.

Ruth always took it on trust that Conway knew what he was doing. The big deal he negotiated a few years back with BRX confirmed this for her. Not only that, but it also set the bar for her expectations, and set it pretty high. Because as far as Ruth was concerned – is concerned – there’s no debate about the direction this thing is going in. It’s only a matter of time, she believes, recession notwithstanding, before Conway pulls off another spectacular and they move up to the next level.

However, with this Black Vine catastrophe – self-inflicted or not, it doesn’t really matter – they’ve pretty much lost everything.

How does he break that to her?

And how does he break it to her that it might even be a lot worse? That the BRX deal itself is in danger of coming apart, of unspooling, and all the way back to that long, wet, complicated summer of three years ago…

As he approaches the front door, rummaging for his key, he wonders how he’s going to be able to face this now, with the kids pulling at him and screaming for attention.

What he’d like to do is turn around and get back in the car, but where would he go? He has to face Ruth sooner or later.

He puts his key in the door.

Where does he even begin? Does he explain to her that while he might be responsible for the financial mess they’re in, his old friend and political patron, Larry Bolger, is now a direct threat to their security, to everything they hold dear? That if the man can’t keep his mouth shut, Conway and others might actually end up going to prison?

When he gets inside the door he hears sounds coming from the playroom to the right. They’re watching something on TV. He doesn’t go in. He walks straight on towards the kitchen at the back.

Ruth is sitting at the counter, alone, gazing up at the small wall-mounted TV over the fridge.

‘Hi,’ he says.

She turns to look at him. He is alarmed at the expression on her face. Does she know already? Has Martin Boyle phoned?

‘What’s wrong?’ No response. ‘Ruth?’

She shakes her head slightly. ‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘What?’ Panic now. ‘No. Heard what?’

She points up at the TV screen. It’s tuned to Sky News. At first he doesn’t understand, it’s just a newscaster, saying something about a Lib Dem by-election candidate…

But then he sees it.

The crawl.

Running across the bottom of the screen.

BREAKING NEWS: FORMER IRISH PRIME MINISTER LARRY BOLGER DIES SUDDENLY IN LONDON… BREAKING NEWS: FORMER IRISH PRIME MINISTER LARRY BOLGER DIES SUDDENLY…

The elevator door opens onto the underground car park of the BRX Building and Clark Rundle steps out. His car is waiting, but directly behind it is another car, door open, engine running. Don Ribcoff gets out and walks over.

‘Sorry, Clark, this won’t take a minute.’

Ribcoff had phoned just as Rundle was leaving for an appointment and he wanted to see him in person. Since Ribcoff doesn’t place much trust in electronic forms of communication, most of his business is conducted in this way.

Rundle is slightly agitated. He’s en route to the Wilson Hotel, to see Nora. ‘What is it?’ he says.

‘That potential situation we had overseas, with the politician? I’ve just heard it’s been put to bed.’ Even with all his security measures in place, Ribcoff still occasionally has a habit of delivering updates in language like this, coded, bleached of specifics.

Rundle finds it strange.

He makes a face. ‘That was fast.’

‘Well, the old man was pretty adamant.’ Ribcoff shrugs. ‘It was rushed, that’s for sure, and they nearly botched it, but it’s fine.’

‘What about the…’ Rundle is about to say ‘journalist’, but stops himself. Might be a bit specific for Ribcoff’s taste. ‘What about the young guy, the, er…’ He’s not good at this. ‘The young guy that the older guy, the politician, talked to?’

‘You mean the journalist?’

Jesus.

Rundle nods. ‘Yeah.’

‘We’re going to keep an eye on him, you know, do a sneak and peek, monitor his activities, and…’ He glances around.

Rundle waits. ‘And?’

Ribcoff looks back. ‘Take action, if necessary.’ He pauses. ‘You know, some form of containment.’

‘OK.’

Maybe Rundle understands it after all, this need for lingo, for euphemism.

‘In the meantime,’ Ribcoff says, ‘I have some travel details for you.’ He reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out a slim envelope. He hands it to Rundle. ‘Tomorrow, for Thursday. Is that good?’

‘Yes.’

He’ll have to clear his diary and let Eve know he won’t be here when she gets back from England. He’ll also have to arrange to have vaccinations done. Though Ribcoff probably has that set up already.

‘You’ll be going via Paris to Rwanda, and then over the border to the airstrip at Buenke.’

Rundle nods. This will be a Gideon Global operation all the way. They provide transport in and out of the country, as well as escort security at the site.

He’s essentially putting himself in Ribcoff’s hands.

‘And Kimbela?’

‘We’ve just had word from our guy that he’s agreed to a meeting. He’s not happy about what happened last week, but we’re negotiating a reparation package.’

‘And I take it you’ve already done some form of psych screening of your remaining personnel over there.’

Ribcoff doesn’t like this. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘it was a blip, unfortunate yes, but… a blip. These things happen. Even Kimbela understands that.’

‘Oh, he does? And I’m supposed to take comfort from the fact?’

‘Clark, come on -’

‘I’m kidding, Don. Jesus, lighten up.’

Actually, he’s not kidding, and on the way to his suite at the Wilson he realises just how much he’s not kidding. In normal circumstances, by the time he’s riding the elevator up to the tenth floor there’d be a certain amount of anticipatory lead in the equation – to adopt Ribcoff’s linguistic technique – but not today.

Not even when Nora comes through the door.

He’s got a knot in his stomach now, and he reckons he’d better get used to it.

It won’t be going away any time soon.

Jimmy isn’t sure what he’s got here, what he’s coming away with, and as he walks back to his hotel, through the dark, quiet streets of the city, a fog of ambivalence, as familiar as it is unwelcome, settles over him. He really liked Francesca and Pina – liked their different styles and coping mechanisms, liked the way they were confrontational with each other and supportive at the same time. But that hardly gives him the right to come along and intrude into their lives, does it? He did the same with Maria Monaghan and look how that worked out. It’s one thing to interview a pharmaceutical executive for a trade publication and ask about patents or production schedules; it’s another thing entirely to sit across from grieving family members who want to understand how and why their loved one died, and know that your questions – your mere presence, in fact – is giving them hope, hope that you know in all likelihood to be false.

He didn’t make any promises, though. He didn’t lie to them.

At least.

Is that enough?

He passes a small bar, an enoteca, one of the few places still open, and is tempted to go in, but he’s more anxious to get back to the hotel. He could have used Francesca’s laptop to chase up this lead, but he wasn’t keen on the idea of having her there the whole time, peering over his shoulder. He’s also naturally quite cautious and didn’t want to leave a trail of his internet searches on her computer.

Back in his room, he jots down a few quick notes from the evening. Then he opens his laptop and goes online.

Dave Conway.

When Francesca said the name, Jimmy recognised it straightaway. Dave Conway. Conway Holdings. One of the property guys. Hotels, apartment blocks, housing estates. But he had absolutely no idea what connection Dave Conway might have to Clark Rundle or to Gianni Bonacci.

He types in the name.

The thing is, Jimmy calls this a lead, automatically thinks of it that way, but maybe it’s nothing.

Maybe it’s a different Dave Conway.

He does a search anyway and surfs around for a while – business websites, directories, news archives – not expecting to find anything. To his surprise, however, he quickly comes across a clear, unequivocal connection. Three years ago, it seems, around the time of the conference, Clark Rundle’s company, BRX, bought a Conway Holdings subsidiary, First Continental Resources.

No more than that, no detail, just a reference.

Jimmy is fully aware that this doesn’t have to mean anything, that it’s a random, neutral fact he has found on the internet.

But -

It certainly joins up a lot of dots.

Larry Bolger, Clark Rundle, Dave Conway, Gianni Bonacci, Susie Monaghan.

What all of this means, in turn, he doesn’t really know. But his sense, increasingly, is that it must mean something – that there’s simply too much here for it not to mean something.

In which case, it occurs to him, shouldn’t he be concerned? A little nervous even?

Why?

Because -

Jimmy gets up off the bed and goes over to the window. There isn’t much of a view, just red slate roofs in the moonlight. It’s quiet, too, with occasional sounds drifting up from a nearby restaurant, cutlery and plates, laughter.

Because if it does mean something, think what that something must be.

Before now all of this had been academic, more or less, supposition, speculation – and at a considerable remove from any reality Jimmy is familiar with. But there’s something about being in Italy that changes that, recalibrates it, brings it closer to home. Maybe it’s the air or the architecture, he doesn’t know, but he has an acute sense right now of time and history, of ceaseless activity and intrigue, of ripeness and rot, of this calcified political culture where literally anything is possible – where the assassination of a middle-ranking official, for example, would be as routine and banal as the cancellation of an IT support contract.

Jimmy turns around and faces the room.

So what’s he saying? All of a sudden this is plausible? It’s thinkable? But wouldn’t that have to apply – logically, sooner or later – to most things? Including, he’d have to suppose, various forms of damage limitation? Damage caused, say, by someone who couldn’t keep his mouth shut? And then, in turn, by whoever that someone might have been talking to?

Jimmy is tired and losing perspective. He feels like having that drink now and wonders if it’s not too late to head back out.

He goes and sits on the edge of the bed.

Maybe he could find that bar again, the one he passed earlier.

He reaches over for the laptop, pulls it towards him. Before he logs off, he clicks onto the Irish Times website.

Force of habit.

It’s the first item he sees.

Larry Bolger dead.

One phrase. Three words. No room for ambiguity.

He stares at the headline in shock. Then he clicks onto the main story. It says Bolger died of a heart attack. In the lobby of a London hotel.

Jesus Christ.

But what was he doing in London in the first place? Who was he with? Who was he seeing?

It takes Jimmy a while to understand something here. As he’s staring at the screen, scanning the article, it creeps up on him. He realises he’s taking it for granted that this isn’t what it seems. Based on what? Absolutely nothing. But he’s convinced he’s right.

He’s convinced, too, that it won’t – can’t – end there.

At which point his phone rings. Without taking his eyes from the screen, he reaches over and picks it up.

‘Yeah?’

‘Hi, Jimmy, how’s it going? It’s Finbarr.’

Jimmy stops, looks up, confused. ‘Who?’

‘Finbarr. From across the hall.’

‘Oh. Yeah. Hi. I… I was just reading about Larry Bolger.’

‘Right. I know. Weird, isn’t it? But come here, listen.’

‘Yeah?’

Something about his tone.

Jimmy braces himself.

‘Sorry to lay this on you when you’re away and all, but there was a break-in this evening, in the building. Your place got done over. I’m afraid, it’s pretty bad.’