Winterland

by Alan Glynn

  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.

&n
bsp; 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.

  Six

  1

  Norton has put his phone on vibrate, but the noise it’s now making as it rattles on the glass table in front of him is almost as much of an intrusion as any ringtone would be.

  He picks it up and looks at the display.

  Fitz.

  ‘I have to take this,’ he says and stands up. There are six people sitting around the table – three tax advisers, two lawyers and a management consultant. As Norton turns away, there is a general redeployment of energy in the room, papers get shuffled, throats cleared, water sipped.

  Norton says, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘OK.’

  He steps out into reception.

  ‘I got your message,’ Fitz says. ‘Sorry I couldn’t take the call. I was swamped.’

  ‘Right. Anyway, er … I need –’ Norton glances over at the receptionist. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  ‘OK. But listen, I have an update for you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Norton crosses reception and stands at a window looking down onto Baggot Street. It’s raining. Traffic is at a standstill. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The skinny fella, yeah? He went for coffee yesterday with your one, the sister.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, she went to the office and then they came out. Went to a coffee shop. About twenty-five minutes in total.’

  ‘You’re only fucking telling me this now?’

  ‘Look, I just got the report myself.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  Gina Rafferty talking to Dermot Flynn? Jesus. What is the bitch up to?

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yeah, she met some other bloke for coffee as well, earlier, but we don’t know who he is.’

  Norton swallows and runs his free hand over his head. ‘A young guy? Old? What?’

  ‘Thirtyish. Tall, dark. In a suit.’

  Feeling as if the room is about to detach itself from under his feet and start spinning, Norton reaches out and leans against the sash of the window. ‘We can’t talk about this on the phone. Meet me down in the car park.’ He looks at his watch. ‘In an hour.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Don’t fucking start with me, Fitz.’

  ‘Right. Right. OK.’

  Norton puts his phone away and walks back towards the boardroom. Since he likes to stay as clearheaded as possible for these financial meetings he didn’t take any Narolet this morning as he normally would have. And now he needs some.

  Badly.

  Standing at the door, he reaches into his pocket for his pillbox. But it’s not there. Which means he must have left it at home, on the bedside table maybe, or in his bathroom.

  Damn, he thinks, totally distracted now as he re-enters the boardroom.

  An hour later he’s down in the building’s small underground car park. Fitz is sitting next to him.

  They sit in silence for a while.

  Over the fifteen years that these two men have known each other they have become mutually dependent in ways neither of them is keen to dwell on. Not long after they met, and with Norton’s financial backing, Fitz set up High King Security and emerged from his pre-ceasefire chrysalis of republican activism into the open air of so-called legitimate business. The firm specialised in on-site security for the construction industry, and Norton quickly became its principal client. But when new developments in technology nudged High King in the direction of private investigations and electronic surveillance, Norton found himself relying on the company quite a lot, and on Fitz in particular.

  Lately, of course, things have moved to another level. They both know this but have yet to have a proper discussion about it. Nevertheless, the two men do understand each other: Fitz is no choirboy and still has his connections from the old days; Norton is a hard-nosed pragmatist and not someone to let fools stand in his way.

  A vehicle passes behind them, and the interior of the car darkens over momentarily.

  All the same, it is a little awkward sitting here like this. Because the most glaring aspect of what they haven’t discussed yet, and very pointedly, is the terrible fuck-up that led to things getting so complicated in the first place. OK, it was rushed and frantic, no one’s arguing with that, and it was Norton who came up with the idea originally – so he’s prepared to accept some of the blame at least …

  But my Christ.

  There was serious money involved as well.

  He stares straight ahead at the dull concrete wall in front of them.

  Now isn’t the time, though. He needs Fitz. He can’t just replace him.

  ‘OK,’ he says, ‘first the skinny lad, Flynn.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Fitz says, shifting his weight in the seat. ‘Do you want me to have another word with him? From what I understand he’s been acting up a bit lately. Maybe he needs a stronger message. We could take one of his kids for a couple of hours, go for a drive sort of thing, up the Dublin Mountains. That’d scare the shit out of him.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Left on his own, Norton thinks, Flynn would probably be safe enough, but with Gina Rafferty at him, asking questions, probing, he could easily crack.

  She’s the problem.

  ‘Leave the kids alone,’ he says after a long pause. ‘It’d be messy. You’d only be asking for trouble.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Keep it simple. But have a word with him all the same.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So.’ He exhales. ‘The sister. What’s the story there? Any joy with the mobile calls?’

  ‘Yeah, I finally got this new piece of kit I was telling you about, it’s amazing, about the size of a laptop. You target someone’s phone, right? Then you can listen in, record calls, download texts and emails. It’s fucking brilliant.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  Fitz shrugs his shoulders. ‘I dunno. How does anything work these days? You install the software and that’s it, off you go.’

  ‘Yeah, but … do you have to insert anything in her phone, or get –’

  ‘Ah, Jaysus no, no. It’s all remote. It picks up the signal. It’s got this sniper antenna thing on it. For long-distance use. So you can be anything up to seven or eight hundred yards away.’

  ‘OK. Good.’

  Norton is still annoyed about the Narolet, and as a result is feeling massively irritated by everything – by Fitz here beside him, by the texture of his own suit, by the colour of the car’s leather upholstery, by the fact that it’s Tuesday. He needs his pills. As soon as he has a chance, he thinks, he’s going to have to drive out home and get them.

  ‘Anyway,’ he goes on, still looking straight ahead, ‘I want you to keep a very close eye on her from now on.’

  ‘Yeah. No problem.’

  ‘And listen. There’s someone else I want you to keep an eye on. I think it might be that other fella you mentioned, the one she met earlier.’

  Norton’s voice has a slight tremor in it. He finds this, in equal measure, embarrassing and annoying.

  He’s not sure how noticeable it is.

  ‘Right,’ Fitz says, seemingly oblivious, and taking a small notebook out of his pocket. ‘What can you tell me about him? Shoot.’

  2

  The Dáil chamber is packed for Leaders’ Questions, and there’s an air of excitement ab
out the place that you normally wouldn’t get unless something major was in the offing. In the front row of the government benches, three seats along from the Taoiseach, Larry Bolger sits stony-faced, keenly aware of the cameras, keenly aware that he’ll be in frame whenever the Taoiseach is speaking. On the other side of the chamber, opposition party leaders limber up, consult their notes, confer with colleagues.

  These will be key exchanges this afternoon and may even have a bearing on the outcome of the next election. They’ll certainly have a bearing on Bolger’s future. A lot will depend, of course, on how the Taoiseach chooses to play it. Most commentators agree he’s in a very difficult position and has only two options. In the first, he comes on strong and hangs the minister out to dry. This addresses the issue at hand and sees off a challenger, making him look strong and decisive. But it’s also quite risky because what if he comes on too strong? What if he appears disloyal or even vindictive? As well as bringing Bolger down, he could very well take a serious hit himself. In the second option – the path of least resistance – he gives his unequivocal support to the minister. But this is also inherently risky for the Taoiseach because it means he’d be throwing a lifeline to someone who everyone knows has been plotting against him for months. And that would only make him look weak.

  Clearly, this second option is what Bolger wants, and needs – though there isn’t much he can do to bring it about now. Apart, that is, from sitting there with a serious look on his face. And regardless of how he does that, he’ll still be perceived in a variety of different ways – as defiant, or contrite, or reflective, or baffled, or bored even.

  All of which, in a sense, he is.

  Not to mention exhausted, and anxious, and angry.

  As the leader of the main opposition party gets to his feet and starts framing a predictably labyrinthine question for the Taoiseach, Bolger fixes his gaze on a section of carpet in the middle of the floor. To look at him you would think he was concentrating hard on the question being asked, analysing and parsing it, but in fact his thoughts are elsewhere. What he’s doing – and has been doing all day – is analysing and parsing the brief, cryptic conversation he had the previous evening in Buswell’s Hotel.