Winterland

1

On the way into town from Dublin Airport the next morning Larry Bolger skims through the statement he’s going to be making at a press conference in twenty minutes.

Paula is slumped in the seat next to him. She has fallen asleep and is snoring lightly. Bolger himself hasn’t slept in over thirty-six hours and probably won’t for at least another twelve.

On the plane, he revised the statement endlessly, each time making amendments, but now he’s more or less satisfied with it. On Saturday he issued a bald statement from Chicago denying all of the charges. This is merely a clarification of that denial with some specifics thrown in.

But it’s the Q &A part of the press conference that he’s dreading.

It’s not that he’ll have a problem answering any of the questions they throw at him – he won’t – but getting tied up in Jesuitical knots over his personal finances, justifying expense sheets and unauthorised credit-card use – it looks bad. It’s undignified and will dent his credibility.

Of course, he’ll do his level best to turn things around by focusing on what the trade mission accomplished and by constant use of the phrase ‘going forward’, but they, the media, will drag it back – inevitably, inexorably – to the race meetings and the assignations, to what he ordered from room service on such and such a date… to the betting slips and the Cristal and the lobster and the porcelain veneers.

It will be a war of attrition.

He looks out of the window to the left. They pass the Bishop’s Palace and approach Binn’s Bridge.

He hates the media. Some of the stuff they dug up in the papers yesterday was despicable. Two of the articles he saw online went as far back as Frank’s accident and even included archive photos of the crash scene.

He shakes his head.

They’re a shower of bastards.

Because of them, as well, he now has to explain to his wife and daughters what he was doing five years ago with some woman they’d never heard of until last week. He has to work on convincing the party that he’s not a loose cannon. He has to maintain his composure and pretend to his supporters that his chances of taking over as leader haven’t been seriously compromised.

He can’t begin to imagine how all of this is looking from the fifth floor of the Wilson Hotel. According to Paddy Norton, who phoned again yesterday evening, no one’s been in touch about it yet – though of course they will be.

Bolger looks down and straightens his tie.

It has certainly raised his profile here, though. Nationally. Bolger is in the cabinet and gets interviewed a lot, he’s well known, but this level of name recognition is something else again. It’s the kind most politicians only ever dream about.

That is, of course, if you accept that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

They take a left at Gardiner Street.

Beside him, Paula is muttering something. He turns to look at her. She’s still asleep.

‘… but my phone isn’t charged… yes, I know… nine point seven…’

Different parts of her are twitching. It’s as though she has a low-level electrical current running through her body.

Deciding not to wake her up just yet, Bolger turns away again. He glances out of the window, at Mountjoy Square.

He wonders what Frank would have made of all this – or, if he wasn’t so unwell, the old man? What would he make of it? Politics was big in their house when they were kids. Liam Bolger was a local councillor for many years, and two of his brothers – Larry’s uncles – were in the trade-union movement. All of them were fierce party loyalists. Frank showed an interest from the beginning, and the old man encouraged him, took him to meetings, got him involved. Larry showed little interest, and if he wasn’t a disappointment to the old man, it was never exactly clear what he was. Frank, in any case, was the golden boy, and all of the family’s hopes for a successful political career – all of the old man’s hopes – were pinned on him. But then came that awful night… the trauma and grief of a fatal car crash, the horror of losing a son, the crushing blow of seeing your dreams die. Afterwards, in a desperate attempt to regroup – and with unyielding determination – the old man turned the spotlight onto his next son down.

Bolger closes his eyes.

There was a touch of that whole Kennedy thing to it, the royal succession, the passing on of the baton, of the flame - though over the years Larry has never been able to figure out if his relationship to Frank was more like Jack’s relationship to Joe Jr., or Bobby’s to Jack, or maybe even, and most likely, Teddy’s to Bobby.

He opens his eyes.

Just ahead is the Carlton Hotel, where he’s giving the press conference. He nudges Paula awake.

‘Oh… oh shit. Where are we?’

‘At the gates of hell,’ he says. ‘Look.’

She leans forward.

Dozens of reporters and photographers, jostling for position, are gathered at the entrance to the hotel.

Paula whips a compact out of her pocket, flicks it open and examines herself.

‘Oh God,’ she says, making a lame attempt to adjust her hair. ‘Look at the state of me.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ Bolger says. ‘I don’t think you’re the one they’re interested in.’

As the car pulls up at the hotel, the photographers and reporters surge forward.

‘Remember,’ Paula says, like a ringside coach slipping in his plastic mouthpiece, ‘you’re indignant about all of this, you’re bewildered, you’re hurt.’

‘Yes,’ Bolger says, nodding his head.

He takes a deep breath and reaches for the door. Then, as he steps out of the car and into a hail of clicks, whirrs and flashes, he repeats to himself, over and over, mantra-like, indignant, bewildered, hurt… indignant, bewildered, hurt…

2

It takes Gina no more than ten minutes to locate Mark Griffin. When she gets into the office that morning she sits at her desk, pulls out the phone book and simply looks up his name. There are six Mark Griffins and over twenty M. Griffins. She starts with the Marks. Most of the previous night she lay awake thinking about how hard this would be, anticipating all sorts of obstacles, dead ends, trails gone cold – but now she’s surprised at how easy, and obvious, it is.

With the first and second Marks she’s a little awkward in her approach, a little too direct, but by the third one she’s got it right.

‘Hello, may I speak to Mark Griffin please?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Hello. I hope I’m on to the right person. I’m, I’m looking for a Mark Griffin who lost family members many years ago in a road accident, I -’

‘No, no,’ comes the immediate response, ‘no, no, sorry… you must be looking for someone else.’

The next response, number four, is very different – a silence that goes on so long Gina eventually has to interrupt it.

‘Hello?’

‘Yes,’ the voice says, ‘I’m here.’

Gina swallows.

This is him. She can tell. She glances at her watch.

Ten minutes.

She didn’t think it would happen so fast, and now she’s not prepared. What does she say next?

‘Thank you.’

Thank you?

‘Look, who is this? Are you a journalist?’

‘No, no, of course not. My name is Gina Rafferty and I… I lost someone myself, two weeks ago, a brother, in a road accident, I…’

She doesn’t know how to proceed.

Then it’s Mark Griffin’s turn to interrupt the silence.

‘You have my condolences,’ he says, ‘really, but listen, I’m not a grief counsellor, I -’

‘I know, I know, and I’m sorry, but I do have a specific reason for calling you.’ She pauses. ‘I wonder if we could meet somewhere and talk.’

He exhales loudly and then says, ‘How did you get my name? How do you know about me?’

‘Can I explain all of that when we meet?’

Somewhat reluctantly he agrees, at first saying he’s busy and that it’ll have to be sometime later in the week. But then, as he flicks through what Gina imagines to be a diary or a notebook, his attitude seems to shift.

‘Look,’ he says, ‘what are you doing now?’

‘Now? This morning?’

‘Yeah.’ There is a new urgency in his voice. ‘In the next hour or two.’

‘Well… nothing, I suppose.’

‘OK then.’

They arrange to meet in a café on South Anne Street at eleven.

Before he leaves the house, Mark stops for a moment in front of the hall mirror. He looks awful. He didn’t shave this morning and his eyes are puffy. If it wasn’t for the Italian suit he’s wearing, he’d probably look more of a shambles. He doesn’t care, though.

He gets in the car and pulls out onto Glanmore Road.

It’s just after ten o’clock. Rush hour in Dublin never really ends, but if he’s lucky he should be able to make it into town in twenty-five, thirty minutes, get parking and be at the café on South Anne Street just before eleven.

He needs a little time to get his head together.

Mark has no idea who Gina Rafferty is or what she wants, but in the half hour since she called he’s come as close to having a panic attack as it’s possible to get without actually, technically, having one – the only thing holding it in abeyance, in fact, being a blind and unreasonable expectation that this woman, whoever she is, is going to be able to tell him something.

The traffic through Drumcondra is light enough, and once he crosses Tolka Bridge it loosens up even more.

Mark looks in the rearview mirror – at himself. His eyes are still puffy… and red and rheumy. This is the first hangover he’s had in a very long time. It was the first drink.

Half a bottle of Bombay Sapphire.

He’d resisted for days. But eventually there didn’t seem to be much point. It’d been so long since he’d had to confront head-on the reality of the accident – and it turned out to be more of a strain than he could bear, sifting through his memory like that…

The thing is, Mark thinks he can remember the crash happening, but the truth is he probably can’t. No doubt, in retrospect, his imagination has filled in a lot of the detail – provided colour, splashes of red, a wash of orange, a rotating blue light, as well as sound effects, screeches, screams, groans – but the reality of it all, buried deep somewhere in his subconscious and effectively inaccessible to him now, may have been quite different. What he can picture in his head, and what shows up unbidden every once in a while in dreams, is a serviceable version of the event. It may not be an accurate representation of what actually happened, but this ‘memory’ accords with the facts as they’ve been handed down to him, and anyway, it’s all he’s got.

He finds a parking space on Nassau Street.

But what is really strange here is that the subject has come up twice, and separately, in the space of a few days.

Is that just a coincidence, or is there something going on?

Mark doesn’t know. But either way, this is the single most formative event of his life, and never once – it occurs to him – never once has he had a proper conversation about it, ever… with anyone.

He looks at his watch and wonders now, nervously, as he walks back towards Dawson Street, if that isn’t about to change.

Gina leaves the office and walks along Harcourt Street. As she’s approaching the junction with St Stephen’s Green, a silver Luas, bell ringing, glides by. She crosses at the lights after the tram and enters the Green.

So much about Dublin has changed in recent years, but this great garden square with its winding pathways and formal flower beds isn’t one of them. In fact, if it weren’t for people’s clothes – Gina thinks – and their mobile phones, this could be twenty-five, fifty, even a hundred years ago. There’s something reassuring about that – even if it doesn’t make today, or what she’s about to do, any less real.

Not that she’s at all clear in her mind what that is.

A lot will depend on Mark Griffin. He was a kid when the accident – the crash – happened, so how much does he know about it? How much was he told when he was growing up? Is he aware that at the time there was lots of what Jackie Merrigan called ‘talk’? Griffin sounded relatively normal on the phone, but how will he respond to the fact that Gina’s theory, pretty shaky to start with, is not backed up by a single shred of evidence?

The thing is, for her theory to come into any kind of focus, for a discernible pattern to emerge, there needs to be a stronger connection between her brother and Larry Bolger. What she has is that they played poker sometimes, and apparently weren’t evenly matched. Meaning what? Bolger owed Noel money? He couldn’t pay it back?

Gina groans.

That’s pretty weak.

But then she remembers what Terry Stack had to say and it makes her want to scream.

She crosses the stone bridge over the pond and heads for the Dawson Street exit.

There’s something else, too, not a connection exactly, not anything she can use – but a memory… from when she was a kid. It came to her last night after she got off the phone with Jackie Merrigan and was on the sofa taking another look at that two-page spread in the Sunday World.

It was of the house in Dolanstown… the front room with its old wallpaper, thick carpet and ornaments on the mantelpiece. The TV was on and her mother was in the armchair, cigarette dangling, glass in hand. Gina herself was playing on the floor when out of the blue – and almost shouting – her mother said, ‘Ah Jesus, Mary and Joseph, no.’

Gina turned around. Her mother was pointing at the TV screen.

‘Look at that. Oh God isn’t it awful.’

Gina looked.

What she remembers now is more like an abstract image than anything else, because how was she supposed to make sense of what she was seeing – of what must have been a closeup shot of the second car, mangled and crushed out of all recognition? She didn’t understand what she was hearing either, though one thing she does remember is a man in uniform saying, ‘tragic altogether, the mother and father, and their little girl…’

What sticks in Gina’s mind the most, however, is her mother saying over and over again, ‘That poor little boy, that poor little boy… my Jesus, that poor unfortunate little boy.’ Gina was puzzled at this and wanted to say, No, no, Mammy, it was their little girl, it was their little girl, Mammy… the man said…

But she remained silent.

In time, Gina learned how to handle her mother when drink was involved, but back then she just used to keep her head down and stay quiet. Besides, she was the only one left in the house at that stage – all of the others had gone, even Catherine and the baby.

Or was Catherine still there? Was little Noel still there? Upstairs asleep in his cot maybe?

The memory doesn’t stretch to that kind of detail, but what seems pretty certain now – as Gina crosses at the light and heads down Dawson Street – is that when she was a kid, six or seven years old, she saw a report on TV of the car crash that killed both Larry Bolger’s brother and the parents and sister of the man she’s about to meet.

Already scanning the room as she walks through the door, Gina identifies Mark Griffin more or less immediately. He’s sitting alone in a corner. The place is quite busy, but he’s the only person she can see who fits the age profile.

She goes straight over to him.

‘Mark?’

‘Yeah. Gina?’ He half stands up and puts out his hand.

They shake and Gina sits down, her back to the room.

‘So,’ she says, feeling horribly awkward.

Their eyes meet for a second. Then he looks over her shoulder.

‘What would you like?’ he asks, raising a finger. ‘Coffee, tea, juice?’

Gina glances down at what he’s having. It seems to be a large black coffee.

‘Er…’

A young Chinese guy appears at her side and says, ‘Hi, good morning. What would you like?’

‘Er… I’ll have a double espresso, please.’

The Chinese guy takes a moment to write this down and then goes away.

Thankful for that little breather, but sorry now it’s over, Gina looks up and smiles.

Mark Griffin is dark. He has dark hair, dark eyes and a dark complexion. He’s wearing a very nice dark suit and a plain dark tie. But he’s also unshaven and looks somewhat the worse for wear. Gina doesn’t know what she was expecting – although a small, irrational part of her was expecting a five-year-old boy in short grey trousers and a V-necked jumper.

‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me,’ she says. ‘I realise this must be difficult for you, but I just wanted to, er…’ She hasn’t really worked out how to put this. ‘I just wanted…’

‘Look,’ Mark Griffin says, leaning forward, ‘it isn’t easy for me, that’s true, but from what you said on the phone I’m sure it isn’t easy for you either.’ He pauses. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me what happened to your brother?’

Gina nods and says, ‘OK.’

She intends to go for a slow build, with plenty of context and detail, but by the time the waiter arrives back with her double espresso a couple of minutes later, she finds she’s already blurted most of it out – even to the extent of using phrases like ‘faked accident’ and ‘professional hit’.

She does stop short, though, of mentioning Larry Bolger.

She leans forward and takes a sip from the espresso. She looks at Griffin for a reaction, but there isn’t one.

After a moment he reaches out and takes a sip from his own cup.

What is he thinking?

Gina doesn’t know, but it would seem reasonable to assume that he’s torn between wanting to hear more of her theory and wanting to be told what the fuck any of this has to do with him.

He looks at her. ‘You didn’t say why you think anyone would want to kill your brother.’

‘Well, I don’t really know why. That’s what I’m trying to find out. But the thing is’ – here goes, she looks into his eyes – ‘the thing is, he did some work over the years with Larry Bolger… and I -’

Griffin blanches. ‘Sorry… Larry Bolger?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s what this is about? Something to do with Larry Bolger?’

‘Well maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Jesus.’ He exhales. ‘Jesus.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to -’

‘No… it’s OK.’ He exhales again. ‘But I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?’

Gina feels her stomach sinking. How coherent an answer to this question can she give?

‘Look,’ she says, ‘I’m probably on shaky ground here, and I don’t want to stir up any bad memories or upset you in any way, but I was talking to someone last night, someone who remembers the crash from twenty-five years ago, a cop, and he was saying that the official story was that your father -’ she pauses, swallows, ‘that your father caused the accident. Because he’d been drinking. But that… maybe things weren’t so clear-cut. This guy said that at the time there was a question mark over whether your father even drank at all, and that maybe it was Frank Bolger who was drunk. He said there could well have been a cover-up to protect his reputation… and that Larry Bolger was the one person who had the most to gain from…’

Gina has never had anyone look at her the way Griffin is looking at her now. It’s a queasy kaleidoscope of disbelief, hurt, confusion, fury. He puts a hand on the edge of the table to steady himself.

‘This is insane,’ he whispers.

‘Oh God,’ Gina says, ‘I’m sorry.’

He’s looking away now, over her shoulder, and shaking his head.

Does she go on or shut up?

‘I don’t know,’ she says after a moment, the silence unbearable, ‘it just seemed to be a pattern… accusations of drunk driving used deliberately and maliciously to…’

Her voice trails off.

Twenty-five years apart, different circumstances, the link with Bolger tenuous at best and probably just a coincidence – is that a pattern? Gina has a sudden sense of how flimsy all of this is, and of how irresponsible she’s being in presenting it to someone who has such a profound emotional involvement in what she’s talking about.

‘All my life,’ Griffin says, still whispering, still staring into the distance, ‘all the time I was growing up and in all the years since, I have lived with the horror, with the shame, of knowing that my father was responsible for that crash, and for the deaths of four people… including my sister and my mother…’ He looks directly at Gina now. ‘It was like some sort of black creation myth. And I never talked about it to anyone, I never discussed it with anyone… but it was always there.’

Gina swallows again. She wants to retract and apologise. She wants to get up and leave. She wants to reverse time.

‘And now,’ Griffin goes on, ‘after all these years, out of the blue, I’m faced with the possibility that maybe it wasn’t his fault? That it could have been someone else’s fault? That there was… that there was even some uncertainty at the time? Jesus Christ.’

The edge in his voice unnerves Gina. The thing is, this is only a theory, and her impulse now is to play it down a little.

‘Mark,’ she says softly, ‘I can’t prove any of this.’

But he doesn’t seem to be listening anymore. She’s about to elaborate on her point when he suddenly stands up and shuffles out from behind the table.

‘Mark, please, listen -’

He holds a hand up to silence her. There are tears in his eyes.

He walks off.

Gina swivels around and watches as he goes out the door of the café. He turns right, passes along by the window and quickly disappears from view.

3

Norton looks at his watch. It’s almost midday. He picks up the remote from his desk and flicks on the TV.

Sky News.

He leaves it on mute. Then he slumps back in his ergonomic swivel chair and glances around. He doesn’t like this office anymore. He has set aside an entire floor of the new building for Winterland Properties and can’t wait until it’s ready.

That’s assuming, of course, that everything goes smoothly. Because there are plenty of people out there who’d love to see Norton fall flat on his face, people who said at the outset that the project wasn’t financially viable, that Richmond Plaza would lie vacant for years.

Well, they don’t have much longer to wait.

Norton reaches for the remote again and switches over to RTÉ. On the bulletin at midday there should be some mention of the press conference at the Carlton.

As he waits, he goes over some paperwork relating to the agreement-for-lease of one of the smaller tenants moving into Richmond Plaza. There’s been some dispute over the net lettable area – which bits, exactly, they will or won’t be renting – and he needs to be on top of this before a meeting with their agent at two o’clock.

After a while, he glances over and sees that the news bulletin is starting. He picks up the remote and turns on the sound. The press conference is the lead story.

Norton shakes his head. Is there nothing else happening in the world? No earthquake or hostage crisis? No development in the Middle East? No further slump in the housing market or surge in inflation? Is there nothing to deflect attention from Larry fucking Bolger?

Norton couldn’t believe the coverage in the papers yesterday. It was savage, with the rushed and giddy feel of a premature obituary. What he’s increasingly afraid of, however, is that if they push it and finish him off, Bolger mightn’t be the only one who gets buried.

On screen, it cuts from the studio to the press conference. The minister is sitting at a table in front of a bank of microphones.

‘… and I want to reassure people,’ he’s saying, ‘that I have the full support, the full backing, of my family, my friends and my colleagues.’ He hunches forward. ‘But look, I want people to see this for what it is, which is a witch hunt, pure and simple… it’s a sinister attempt to undermine…’

Norton’s mobile phone goes off. He whips it up and looks at the display. No number. He hesitates, then answers it. ‘Yeah?’

‘Paddy, Ray Sullivan.’

Closing his eyes, Norton emits a low groan. Then he says, ‘Ray, listen, can I put you on hold for a second?’

‘Er… sure.’

Norton lowers his arm and dangles the phone by the side of his chair. He refocuses his attention on the press conference.

‘… and on the other hand accountability, so that I as a public representative, going forward, can get on with the job I was first elected to do as an ambitious young man more than twenty-five years ago.’

Abruptly, the clip ends, and they cut back to the newsreader in the studio. Norton presses the Mute button on the remote. He raises his arm and puts the phone up to his ear again. ‘Ray?’

He’s been dreading this call.

‘Paddy. What the hell is going on over there? I thought you might have gotten in touch by now.’

Norton squirms. ‘I know, I know. I was just waiting to see if it’d blow over.’

‘But… it hasn’t.’

‘Not as yet.’

‘Not as yet.’ Sullivan clears his throat. ‘So let me ask, how’s your boy doing?’

Norton is irritated by the phrasing. ‘He’s OK. He’s stonewalling. Which he’s pretty good at. He’s a politician.’

‘Fine, Paddy, but get this, the story has just come up on the old man’s radar screen, and I have to tell you, he’s pretty pissed. I wasn’t going to mention it to him, at least not yet, but it turns out he’s no stranger to the blogosphere.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah, I know, at his age.’ Sullivan clicks his tongue. ‘But anyway, the thing is, he feels let down. Oberon’s put a lot into this and let’s just say that Mr V. thinks any scandal or unpleasantness should have been flagged way in advance.’

‘Ray, believe me,’ Norton says, ‘this will blow over. It’s just… it’s part of the process. Larry’s getting himself into position and… the gloves are off. Don’t tell me shit like this doesn’t happen all the time up on the Hill.’

‘It does, but people get screwed, Paddy, they get indicted, they go to fucking prison.’

Norton remains silent.

‘Here’s the thing, OK? Mr V. doesn’t want to shake this guy’s hand one week and then have to watch him doing a perp walk on TV the next.’

‘I know.’

‘It’d look bad.’

‘Yeah. I know.’

Norton chews on his lower lip.

As a possible future prime minister of the only English-speaking country in the Eurozone, and with a six-month stint as EU Council President also in prospect, Larry Bolger would undoubtedly be useful to the Oberon Capital Group – he’d be a handy point man to have in terms of regulatory influence and the awarding of contracts.

‘And he liked him,’ Sullivan is saying. ‘He did. So let’s hope you’re right. Let’s hope it is going to blow over.’

‘It is, Ray, trust me.’

‘OK,’ Sullivan then says. ‘Where are we on naming rights?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Norton says, thinking, sly move. ‘I’m glad you brought that up.’

‘So?’

Naming rights is an inexact science if ever there was one, and very easy to get wrong. The future marketability of a building, for example, will often hinge on how its original name resonates. In this case, the Docklands Regeneration Commission has pretty much decided that the neutral-sounding, location-specific Richmond Plaza works best in the context of urban renewal. Ray Sullivan, on the other hand, has been arguing that Amcan, as anchor tenant, should have exclusive rights in the naming of its shiny new European headquarters.

So… the Amcan Building.

It’s not how Norton imagined it, and certainly the last thing he needs right now is another protracted tussle with the Docklands Regeneration Commission, but the smart move here is probably just to cave in to Sullivan’s demands and bring the negotiations to a head.

Besides, given the current economic uncertainty, locking them in like this mightn’t be such a bad idea.

‘Very well,’ he says. ‘Let’s put some numbers together. And talk later.’

‘OK, Paddy, excellent.’

After the call, Norton sits in silence, staring across at a weather update on the TV.

He shakes his head. How and when – he wonders – did Larry Bolger become central to all of this? How and when did he go from being a sweetener, the icing on the cake, to a deal point?

When ads come on, Norton flicks the TV off with the remote.

So perhaps he should be maintaining a closer watch on Bolger. He seemed fairly composed at the press conference there, but he is under a lot of pressure, and anything could happen. Norton knows how that works after all – how the tipping point can just creep up on you.

He picks his mobile phone up again. With his other hand he reaches into his jacket pocket, leans a little to the side and rummages around for his silver pillbox.

4

‘Mark, you look dreadful. What’s… what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

As he strides across the kitchen, Mark can see the alarm in Aunt Lilly’s eyes. When he gets to where she’s standing, over by the sink, he doesn’t do what he usually does, which is bend down and peck her on the cheek.

He just stands there.

Driving out here from town Mark rehearsed what he was going to say. Out loud. These days, of course, you can do that and not have to worry about seeming deranged. You can be alone in your car, even stopped at traffic lights, and talk, shout, make hand gestures, wave your arms about – because for all the guy in the next car knows, you could be barking at your stockbroker or on a conference call to head office in Tokyo.

Or blubbering to your analyst.

But looking into his aunt Lilly’s eyes now, Mark feels the rage and indignation draining out of him. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem fair, or appropriate, to subject her to what would be, in effect, an interrogation.

‘What is it, Mark?’

At the same time, he can’t let it go. He has to ask her something.

‘Aunt Lilly, did…er…’

As he was flying out along the coast road, this was the one question that he held in reserve, that remained in his head, unrehearsed and unarticulated.

‘Yes?’

‘Did…Dad…’

But he doesn’t get beyond that second syllable, which is not a syllable he has used – on its own, out loud – in as long as he can remember. Using it now finishes him off. His eyes well up again.

‘Oh Mark… Mark…’

He turns away. Through the door leading into the living room he can see that the TV is on. As usual, the sound is either off or pitched so low that he can’t hear it.

‘Aunt Lilly,’ he says, ‘are we really…’ There is an ad on for mobile phones. He stares at it. ‘Are we really sure that Dad… that the accident was his fault?’

He turns back and looks at her.

She is ashen.

Mark has never talked to Aunt Lilly about this before. When his uncle Des was alive, he never talked about it to him either. Any time Mark’s circumstances were alluded to over the years, which was usually for practical reasons, it was in a kind of code, it was hushed and hurried, as though mere contemplation of what had happened might be perilous to mental, even physical, health. Mark’s own understanding of what had happened derived mainly from conversations he overheard in the days and weeks following the crash. Some of these, even at that early stage, were hushed and hurried. Others – looking back on them now – were pretty careless, and really shouldn’t have been conducted in his presence. It was as though people thought that because Mark was so small he wouldn’t understand what they were saying, or take anything in, or remember.

But he was five; he wasn’t stupid.

He recalls, for instance – it was in a crowded sitting room or a kitchen – one man loudly whispering to another, ‘I hear poor Tony had drink taken.’ Now Mark may not have grasped the full import of these words at the time, but he certainly took them in and he certainly remembered them. In fact, he will never forget the day some years later – and it was seemingly out of the blue – when the phrase came into proper focus for him, when sufficient context had accrued around it for its meaning to light up suddenly and explode inside his head.

Tony had drink taken.

He recalls hearing the word Bolger, too – from the days right after the crash – hearing it repeatedly, incessantly, until it took on an obscure, elusive kind of significance for him. Much later, there was a moment when the context around that word clicked into place as well.

The thing is, when Mark was growing up, his adoptive parents never told him anything about what was, up to that point, undeniably, the central event of his life, and he, in turn – assuming there was a good reason for their silence – never asked. He did feel that some attempt at a conversation about it was inevitable though, and as a confused, solipsistic kid he often tried to imagine this. It was something he looked forward to, craved even, but as he got into his teens, and as the silence deepened and thickened, it dawned on him that no such conversation was probably ever going to take place. Then, as he got older – and as his retrospective impressions coalesced into a kind of horrifying revelation – he started to dread that one still might, and he did all in his power to demonstrate to his aunt and uncle that he neither needed nor wanted one.

Mark knew what had happened, he believed – and they knew – so what was there to say about it? Why subject themselves to the embarrassment and the shame?

It was the perfect conspiracy of silence.

Looking at his aunt Lilly now, at the confusion in her eyes, Mark sees the breadth and reach of that conspiracy, and is prepared to bet that she has nothing useful to tell him, not because she chooses not to remember, or because she doesn’t remember, but because she doesn’t know, not anymore.

‘Mark…I…’

And perhaps she never did.

‘It’s all right,’ Mark says, turning away again, unable to face her. ‘I was just -’

‘We always meant, your uncle Des and I, we…’

She trails off here, and Mark is relieved. The person he should probably be talking to, in any case, isn’t in the room. He’s been dead for six months.

Standing in the doorway, Mark looks at the TV and sees that a news bulletin is starting up. He lowers his head and closes his eyes.

But if Uncle Des were still alive, he wonders, and here in the room today, what questions would he put to him?

Uncle Des… what really happened that night? Do you remember? Do you know? Were you told? Did you believe what you were told? Did it make sense to you? Did you ask questions? Did you get answers? Were you bullied? Were you coerced into silence? Did that silence last the rest of your life?

He opens his eyes again.

Was my father wrongly accused? Was he made into a scapegoat to protect someone else’s reputation?

Uncle Des may be gone, Mark realises, but someone still needs to answer these questions.

He raises his head. He looks at the TV.

A man is sitting hunched forward at a table in front of some microphones.

It takes Mark a second or two to recognise who it is.

He goes over and grabs the remote from the arm of the sofa. He fumbles for the button and raises the volume.

But all he catches are the final few words.

‘… the job I was first elected to do as an ambitious young man more than twenty-five years ago…’

5

After she leaves the café, Gina walks around for a while, aimlessly – down Grafton Street, along Wicklow Street. On the phone earlier Mark Griffin had asked if she was a journalist and she’d said no, of course not. But now she feels like one, feels like the worst tabloid hack – someone who thinks nothing of exploiting someone else’s grief for a story.

She turns left onto Drury Street and then right at Claudio’s Wines. She walks through the old South City Markets and comes out onto George’s Street.

She should have left him alone. It was unfair of her to plant a doubt in his mind like that and then have nothing to back it up. It was irresponsible and selfish.

She has a knot in her stomach now, and a headache.

She walks on a bit and stops at a corner. But when she looks across the street, the knot in her stomach tightens.

Because the building directly opposite is where Noel used to work. It’s where BCM has its offices.

She looks around her for a moment, and then back across the street. Gina has passed this building many times but has never been inside. On the rare occasions that Noel took her out to lunch, they met nearby, in the Long Hall or in Grogan’s.

So what is she doing here now? It’s not as if she came this way deliberately. It wasn’t anything conscious.

Seeing as how she is here, though…

She crosses the street.

Inside the building, the lobby is all granite and tinted glass, with leather banquettes and discreetly placed artworks. BCM is on the fourth floor.

She goes up in the elevator.

The receptionist, when she realises who Gina is, gets quite emotional, and Gina has to struggle to maintain her own composure. After a few moments, she asks to see a particular colleague of Noel’s, a Leo Spillane, someone she met at the funeral.

‘Oh my dear,’ the receptionist says, making it sound as if this might be the last straw for Gina, ‘I’m afraid he’s out sick today.’

‘That’s OK,’ Gina says. Then, not really knowing why she’s here but still feeling a need to explain herself, she adds, ‘I just wanted to talk to someone. You know. Someone who worked with Noel.’

The receptionist nods her head vigorously and says, ‘I understand, I understand. I know there’s a meeting going on, but look, take a seat and I’ll check who’s back there.’

Two or three minutes later a pale young man about Gina’s age, or maybe a bit older, emerges from a corridor to the right of the reception desk. He’s quite thin and is wearing a suit that looks at least a size too big for him. He approaches Gina with his hand extended.

‘Er, hello,’ he says. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m… I’m Dermot Flynn.’

He’s floating through this – and through everything these days really – as though in a dream, and of course this could be a dream, because it’s got all the elements of a dream: anxiety, tranquillity, perplexity, guilt, more anxiety, and now, bizarrely, Noel Rafferty’s kid sister…

He sits down beside her in reception. He offers his condolences.

‘So tell me,’ she then says, ‘you worked with my brother, is that right?’

The tranquillity part – due to the medication his doctor prescribed him last week – is already feeling a little diluted.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I worked under him. I was, am, a member of the team.’

As he describes his job and his place in the company, Dermot Flynn looks closely at Gina. He sees the resemblance all right – Noel’s angular, drawn features reflected in this younger, fresher, more attractive face.

Up to now he hasn’t allowed himself to think about Noel – and for good reason. Clearly the man was put under the same kind of pressure as Dermot himself was, but whether he skidded off that road by accident or did it deliberately is immaterial – in the end that wasn’t what killed him.

‘On that last day,’ Gina says, ‘the Monday, did he seem particularly tense for any reason?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I’m not even sure I saw him that day.’

He didn’t, in fact – but he’s still lying. He looks around reception. He’s not happy being interrogated like this.

‘Do you want to go outside,’ he says, ‘get a coffee somewhere?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

It’s only when they’re in the elevator on the way down that it occurs to him.

I can’t be seen talking to this woman.

But it’s too late.

Out on the street, he feels exposed, and horribly self-conscious. He tries to hurry things along. They go to a small café around the corner and Dermot sits with his back to the window.

‘So how is Richmond Plaza coming along?’ she asks.

‘Fine,’ he says, ‘yeah, fine.’ He feels like adding, Why?

‘I was up there last week,’ she says, ‘with Paddy Norton. He showed me around.’

Dermot swallows. What’s he supposed to say to that? It’s like she’s teasing him.

‘Yeah… it’s nearly finished, couple of months to go,’ he says, and clears his throat. He can’t bring himself to say anything more on the subject.

She then asks him a few questions about what Noel was like to work with. It’s neutral enough territory and he answers as best he can. He actually talks for quite a while – though at one point he finds himself in the middle of a long sentence and realises he has no idea how he got there. He also has a headache. He starts massaging his temples.

After a few moments of this, Gina says, ‘Dermot, are you OK?’

He looks up. ‘Yes.’ He puts his hands down on the table. ‘I’m fine.’

But the truth is he isn’t. He hasn’t been sleeping lately, or eating, and he’s lost a lot of weight. He’s also been bickering constantly with Claire, something they never used to do, and he isn’t able to look either of his girls in the eye anymore without having his own eyes well up with tears.

He starts massaging his temples again.

Then he looks at Gina.

‘I have to go,’ he says.

6

Mark throws the remote onto the sofa, turns away from the TV and goes back into the kitchen. It doesn’t surprise him that Aunt Lilly is busy – that she’s over at the counter sieving flour into a bowl. Without saying a word, he walks right past her. He goes out the front door, pulls it behind him and heads straight for his car. As he’s backing out of the driveway, he puts on his seat belt.

He checks the rearview mirror, but the front door of the house remains closed.

Driving along the coast road, he glances left, at the sea, and across the bay to the mountains. It’s cloudy, but the sun is beginning to break through in patches.

He doesn’t have a specific destination in mind, but he’s feeling a gravitational pull towards the city centre.

He turns back to face the traffic. His heart is pounding.

So what did happen?

Mark doesn’t know, but the questions are multiplying in his head. Was Frank Bolger the one who got into his car that night with a few too many pints on him? Was he the one who lost control at the wheel and ended up killing himself and three other people? Was talk of drunk driving causing multiple fatalities considered too damaging, too toxic, for such a high-profile TD? In such a key constituency? With a brother waiting in the wings to take the seat? If so, were certain measures then taken? Was the ‘talk’ hushed up? Was evidence suppressed? Were new rumours – this time concerning the driver of the other car – put into circulation?

And what happened next?

Mark’s head is spinning.

Did Des Griffin start voicing objections, saying they had it all wrong, that his brother didn’t even drink? Was he told to shut up – for the sake of the boy? Was he intimidated, threatened, informed he might lose his job in the civil service, or be transferred – or worse? Is that why he was always so…?

Mark passes through Fairview and onto the North Strand Road.

Is this really how it all happened?

Jesus.

If it is – and increasingly it makes sense to him – then surely Gina Rafferty is right. The one person who had anything, indeed everything, to gain from this cover-up… was Larry Bolger.

Gina is reluctant to let Dermot Flynn go, but she can’t very well stop him.

When he stands up to leave, he fumbles for his wallet.

Gina waves him away. ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘I’ve got it.’

He doesn’t argue.

She watches him go out the door and into the street.

When he’s gone, she takes a deep breath. She stares into space and tries to reconstruct the last twenty minutes in her head.

For some reason Flynn was deeply uncomfortable. He was nervous and jittery. He was evasive. He kept staring at other people in the café. He kept interrupting himself, hesitating, not finishing his sentences.

But why was he like this?

Was it something to do with Noel?

That’s the first thing Gina thinks of, not surprisingly – but maybe she’s got it wrong. Maybe Flynn is a nervous type. Maybe he’s bipolar and forgot to take his meds. Maybe she caught him on a bad day.

She can only speculate.

On the short walk back to her own office, she chides herself for not being more aggressive, for not putting Flynn more on the spot.

But she’s tired, she’s confused, and it was such a painful interlude that she just wanted it to end.

As she goes in the door and walks up the stairs, Gina finds herself wishing this whole thing would end – the way sometimes, half consciously, in the middle of one, you want a dream to end.

Mark finds a parking space on Merrion Square. As he walks up towards Baggot Street he makes a couple of calls on his mobile. The first is to directory enquiries and the second is to the press office of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The minister, it seems – not that Mark asked – has made his statement and isn’t available for further comment. In any case, he will be busy all afternoon in the Dáil, and later he’ll be -

‘That’s fine,’ Mark says, ‘thank you.’

He puts away his phone. He walks by the Shelbourne and turns right onto Kildare Street. In less than a minute he is standing in front of Leinster House. He looks in through the tall railings of this Georgian mansion that was originally built as a town house for the Earl of Kildare and is now the seat of both houses of the Oireachtas. There are two gardaí standing sentry at the gates, but they seem to be spending a lot of their time redirecting tourists to the National Library or the National Museum, which are located on either side of the parliament building.

Mark looks at his watch. He wonders what Larry Bolger is going to be so busy with all afternoon. An urgent debate on some vital piece of legislation? Leaders’ Questions? But then he remembers it’s Monday and that when the Dáil is in session they don’t commence business until Tuesday. So what’s Bolger doing in there? Hiding from the media after his press conference? Trying to make himself look busy?

Mark would like to find out, but you can’t just swan in through the gates here. You need clearance or a visitor’s pass. He looks up and down the street. Apart from pedestrians and tourists, there is a bedraggled man with a placard pacing back and forth in front of the sentry box and another man circling idly on the pavement, talking into his mobile.

Farther up the street, people are waiting at a bus stop.

Inside the gates there is an occasional flurry of activity as someone comes or goes or a car passes in or out. It’s not busy though, and after a while Mark begins to feel self-conscious. One of the guards in the sentry box has glanced over at him a couple of times, and it can’t be long, he supposes, before an approach is made.

Eventually he moves away. He wanders up the street a bit, towards the bus stop.

He doesn’t know why he came here. It just seemed like his only option.

But about twenty minutes later – and as though to dispel any doubts he might have had – three men walk out through the gates of Leinster House. They wait to let traffic pass and then cross the street. They enter Buswell’s Hotel on the corner of Molesworth Street.

Mark is pretty sure, even from this distance, that one of the men is Larry Bolger.

Back in the office, Gina sits and stares at her screensaver. There is plenty of work she could be doing, but her heart isn’t in it, not least because she knows the company’s days are numbered. P.J., by contrast, is a lot more positive and talks up the company’s prospects every chance he gets. Siobhan in reception is playing her part as well – though in the room at the back, where the designers and programmers operate, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.

Gina rubs her eyes.

Either way, she’s been out of the equation since her brother died, and no one is expecting anything of her just yet. P.J. could do with the support, but he also knows her well enough not to push it. In any case, it doesn’t take Gina long to realise that sitting around the office in a trance isn’t much of a help to anyone.

She gets up from her desk again. As she’s walking towards the door, she looks over at Siobhan. ‘I’m just…’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m…’

But that’s it. That’s all there is.

On the way down the stairs she wonders how unhinged that must’ve seemed – how unhinged she must seem.

Even though, actually, it isn’t how she feels at all.

Outside, she looks down the gentle curve of Harcourt Street towards the Green, and hears the bell of an approaching tram. There is a slight breeze blowing.

Actually, she thinks, if anyone is unhinged here it’s surely the two men she met this morning, both of whom seemed to be under a great deal of pressure.

Though presumably for different reasons.

Or maybe not.

She starts walking.

If there is a connection between them, it’s not as easy to see right now as the contrast. Because Dermot Flynn – she’s pretty sure – was afraid of something or someone, and seemed vulnerable, whereas Mark Griffin was more like a wounded animal, and seemed, quite frankly, a little dangerous.

He waits for a van to pass, and then a bus, before striding across the street himself. It may be a stroke of luck that Bolger appeared when he did, but that’s certainly not how it feels. Walking down to the corner, heart pounding, Mark feels a keen sense of inevitability about what’s happening. It’s as though the confrontation ahead could no more be avoided than the setting of the sun.

He turns the corner and goes up the steps of the hotel. Before going inside he takes out his mobile phone and switches it off. He enters the lobby and immediately spots Larry Bolger, who is over to the left, standing at the entrance to the bar with the two men he came in with. It strikes Mark how amazingly informal all of this is. Bolger is a government minister, and yet he doesn’t seem to have any security around him, or an entourage.

Maybe it’s the place. This small hotel opposite Leinster House does have that kind of reputation. It’s known to be a sort of home away from home for politicians.

Mark walks across the lobby, and as he does so Bolger and the two men he’s with separate. The two men turn towards the bar, and Bolger heads for a corridor to the right of the reception desk.

Mark follows him – and continues to follow him, seconds later, into the men’s room.

Which is empty.

‘Er… Mr Bolger, can I have a word?’

Mark’s voice is quite shaky and even in danger of sounding a little hysterical.

Two feet away from the urinal, hands already working his fly, Bolger stops and turns around. He looks alarmed. ‘What?’

‘I want to ask you a question.’

‘Hold on a second… who are you?’

Bolger looks smaller than he does on TV. He’s quite a dapper little man, all groomed and primped. He’s wearing a silk suit, cuff links, a gold watch. Even from across the room Mark can smell his cologne.

‘The crash,’ Mark then says, ‘the one… the one your brother was killed in, did you -’

‘Jesus,’ Bolger interrupts. ‘Are you fucking serious? In here? Get the -’

Mark holds a hand up. ‘No, no, simple question. Did you cover it up? Did -’

‘Cover what up? I don’t -’

‘The fact that he was the one who was drunk, he was the one who caused the accident, your brother, and not -’

‘That’s outrageous. Jesus Christ. That’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever -’

‘Is it? Things worked out pretty well for you though, didn’t they?’

‘How dare you. I -’

Sensing movement from behind, Mark spins around.

A young guy in uniform – a hotel staff-member presumably, a bellhop or a porter – is coming through the door.

Mark freezes.

The guy in uniform stops and looks around for a moment. ‘Mr Bolger,’ he says, a little suspiciously, ‘are you -’

‘I’m grand, Tim,’ Bolger says. ‘But I think this gentleman here might have lost his way looking for the exit.’

Mark turns back to Bolger. ‘Well, did you?’

‘Did I what?’ Bolger snaps. Then he shakes his head. ‘You fucking journalists are a breed apart.’

‘I’m not a journalist, I’m -’

‘I don’t give a shite what you are, you’re only a scumbag as far as I’m concerned.’

‘Come on, sir,’ the bellhop says, ‘this way.’

As Mark turns again, he glances into the large mirror above the row of washbasins. All of a sudden the room seems crowded, and the situation a little trickier than he’d imagined. At the same time, Mark can’t believe who he’s standing next to. This man’s name – the word, the very sound of it – is something he has lived with all his life, as he has lived with ambivalence, confusion, shame…

And anger.

‘Sir.’

An emotion he has always managed to repress.

‘Sir.’

Mark holds a hand up, a warning hand.

But he hesitates.

This isn’t the time or the place.

He steps around the bellhop and quickly makes it over to the door. Avoiding eye contact with Bolger, he leaves.

Less than an hour later, he is pulling into his driveway on Glanmore Road.

In the hall he sees that there’s a message on his answering machine. It’s from Susan. She wants to know if he’s on for tonight. They had a semi-arrangement to go for dinner. ‘… so anyway, Mark, call me when you get this. I did try you on your mobile, but it was -’

Before the message ends, he reaches down and presses the Erase button.

He takes out his mobile and throws it down, along with his keys, onto the hall table.

He goes into the living room and looks around. The bottle of Bombay is still on the coffee table from the night before. He goes over, picks it up and takes a slug – neat, straight from the bottle. Then he holds the bottle up and examines it.

There’s only half of it left, less even – which is not going to be enough.

He lowers his arm and thinks for a moment.

There’s red wine in the house. Somewhere. A bottle of Barolo one of his suppliers gave him. He’s pretty sure it’s in the kitchen, in one of the cupboards.

That’ll do.

Then he raises his arm again, slowly, deliberately, and as the bottle makes contact with his lips, he closes his eyes.

7

‘… he was a young fella, I don’t know, late twenties, early thirties, Jesus -’

‘Calm down, Larry, would you?’

‘No, Paddy, I’m very upset. I mean, Christ, I’m under enough pressure as it is, with all this crap in the papers.’

Norton has come outside to take the call. The French doors are open behind him, and he can hear Miriam inside going on about the nation’s obsession with reality TV and how vulgar it all is.

‘What did he say exactly?’

‘He asked me about the accident. I don’t know. He seemed to be implying that it was Frank who caused it.’

It may be chilly out here in the moonlight, but it’s nothing compared to the more abstract chill that Norton feels creeping up on him.

‘I see.’ This comes out almost in a whisper. ‘What else did he say?’

‘He accused me of covering it up.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said that that was outrageous. I mean, what else -’

‘How did he react?’

‘I’m not sure. It all happened very fast. Tim came in, and then he left. He just walked out. We were in the fucking jacks, for Christ’s sake.’

Norton stares out across the floodlit lawn. ‘What did he look like?’

‘Well not like a journalist, that’s for -’

‘Hold on, did he say he was a journalist?’

‘No, he actually said he wasn’t one, but sure what else could he be?’

‘Hmm.’

Norton turns, the gravel crunching under his feet. He glances in through the French doors at everyone gathered around the dining table – at the Doyles, the Shanahans, the Gallaghers.

Miriam is still holding forth.

‘I don’t know, Larry, he probably was a journalist. From one of the tabloids. It’s the only explanation.’ He pauses. ‘I mean, Jesus, you’re a sitting duck at the moment.’

‘Yeah, but this is below the belt.’

‘Below the belt is their m.o., it’s what they do. They’re obviously digging up any old shit they can think of.’

Norton wants this phone call to end.

‘The other stuff I can take,’ Bolger goes on, ‘it’s par for the course, but not this… this is painful. I haven’t thought about Frank in a long time, you know.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I mean…he was my brother -’

When Norton hears the emotion in Bolger’s voice he winces.

‘Of course he was, Larry, of course he was.’

‘- so I don’t know what this sick bastard was mouthing on about.’

‘Look,’ Norton says, ‘you can’t let this derail you.’

‘No.’

‘That’s what they want. They’re trying to come at you from every angle.’ Norton turns again to face the garden. ‘Anyway, you did well at the press conference this morning.’

‘Yeah? You saw it?’

‘Of course.’

Norton proceeds to butter him up over this and then gets off the phone as quickly as he can. But instead of heading straight back in to the dinner party he walks across the gravel and onto the lawn. He wanders down as far as the tennis court.

He stands at the wire fence.

They’ve had the house for ten years and he’s never once been inside the perimeter here, never once set foot on this all-weather acrylic surface.

Because what’s a fat fuck like him going to do with a tennis racquet in his hand? That’s one thing Miriam has never had her way on. Going to the races he took to like a duck to water. Wine, bridge, paintings, antique fucking furniture, whatever. But not tennis.

He takes a couple of deep breaths. The churning in his stomach hasn’t stopped and he can’t be sure he isn’t going to throw up.

He turns around, leans back against the wire fence and looks up at the moon.

It’s him, isn’t it?

It has to be.

For the first time Norton has a real sense of how out of control this situation is getting – and it is all the same situation, he has no doubt about that.

He holds up his phone, scrolls down to Fitz’s number and calls it.

It goes straight into message.

He rolls his eyes. After the tone, he says, ‘It’s Paddy. Call me in the morning.’

He puts the phone away and walks back up towards the house – towards the French doors, where from this angle he can see Miriam neatly framed at the head of the table.

He steps onto the gravel.

The men’s room in a city-centre hotel?

A toilet?

That’s not how he ever imagined it happening – not that it necessarily had to happen at all. It didn’t.

He walks in through the French doors and smiles at his guests.

Miriam nods at someone over by the entrance to the kitchen.

But if it did – Norton continues, a little wistfully, finishing the thought – he had always imagined it happening, somehow, to him.

It can’t hurt, Gina decides.

She dials Mark Griffin’s number and flops down onto the sofa. With her free hand she picks up the remote and flicks off the TV.

She needs to talk to him again. She needs to be blunt. She needs to know if he can help her out or not.

There’s always the possibility, of course, that after talking to her today, he’s the one who needs help.

She needs to know that, too.

It’s ringing.

With the TV off, the room is dark – city dark, electric dark, light shimmering in from adjoining buildings, from the street below, from traffic – a wash of sombre golds, reds and blues.

The ringing stops and there’s a click.

Damn.

Then, ‘Sorry I’m not here at the moment, but please leave your name and number after the tone and I’ll get back to you.’

Beeeep.

‘Er… yes, hi, this is Gina Rafferty. From this morning? I just wanted to apologise for -’

Another click.

‘Gina?’

‘Oh. Mark.’ She swallows. ‘You’re there. Hello.’

‘Hello.’

‘Look, I was saying, I’m… I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to upset you or anything, I -’

‘It’s OK.’

‘I felt awful, but the thing is -’

‘No, no, don’t apologise. You actually… you did me a favour.’

‘What?’

‘A favour… you did me a favour.’

Gina presses the phone against her ear. It’s hard to tell, but he sounds a little… weird?

‘How did I do that?’

‘You opened my eyes. You made me see.’

She says nothing to this.

‘Really, you did. But you know what? I don’t understand how I could have been so bloody stupid, and for so bloody long.’

It’s clear to her now that he has probably – and very understandably – had a few drinks. He’s not slurring his words exactly, but there’s something different-sounding about him. It’s an easy familiarity, a looseness, that wasn’t there before.

‘Mark, I don’t think -’

‘I went to see him, this afternoon.’

‘You what… who?’

‘Larry Bolger. I went to Leinster House. I didn’t go in, but I hung around outside, near the entrance, and after about twenty minutes he and these two other guys came out.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘And I followed them into Buswell’s.’

‘Did you talk to him?’

‘Yeah, I did, and I’ll tell you what, he’s a smug little bastard, because he just stood there with this look on his face…’

Sitting in the half-light of her apartment, staring at the blank TV screen, Gina struggles to take this in. ‘What did you say to him?’

‘I put it to him directly… what you said this morning.’

‘What I said?’

‘Yeah, I accused him -’

‘But, Mark,’ she interrupts, suddenly feeling out of her depth here, ‘Mark, Jesus, I didn’t say…’ She hesitates. What exactly did she say? ‘I didn’t… look, I didn’t tell you this morning that I had evidence, or proof, or anything like it.I -’

‘Gina?’

‘I didn’t claim… I mean I was just -’

‘Gina?’

She stops. ‘What?’

‘I have proof.’

She shuffles into an upright position on the sofa, unable to believe what she’s just heard. ‘What proof?’

He hesitates. ‘Well… not proof exactly…’

Gina groans.

‘…but I believe it, your theory. It explains a lot… about Des. You see I… I think he knew, or suspected, or…’

Gina stares across the room. Who is he talking about? What is he talking about?

‘… but then he didn’t, or wasn’t able to… oh fuck it.’

‘Mark, are you OK?’

‘No. Not really, no.’

Gina gets up off the sofa. As she walks over to the window, she whispers, ‘Do you want me to -’

‘You know what?’ he interrupts. ‘You know what I should have done? I should have gone for him while I had the chance. I should have tackled him to the floor…’

Gina squeezes her eyes shut.

‘… and kicked his fucking head in.’

What has she unleashed here?

She opens her eyes again and looks down at the river.

‘It’s just -’ he hesitates, but then pushes on, clearly unable to help himself, ‘it’s just that this all makes perfect sense to me, because it fits… it fits with the way my uncle was for the last twenty-five years, it fits with the way my aunt is now, it fits with how that smarmy fucker today looked at me…I…I know it.’

‘OK, OK, whoa.’ Gina holds a hand up. It’s as though he’s there in the room, standing right in front of her. ‘Please, Mark, listen to me. Don’t do anything rash. Please.’

He doesn’t answer, but she can hear him breathing. She walks back to the sofa and sits down.

His uncle? Is that the Des he mentioned?

‘Mark?’ she says eventually. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can we meet again some time? To talk about this?’

‘OK.’ He pauses. ‘Give me your number and I’ll call you. I need time to think.’

She gives him her mobile number.

‘And call me, OK? Don’t leave it too long.’

‘OK.’

When she puts the phone down, she rolls sideways and stretches out on the sofa.

What if he’s right?

She looks up at the ceiling.

Shit.

Then that means she was right.