Winterland

by Alan Glynn

  Norton only hopes that it’s quick and efficient – and final.

  They move across the vast atrium, which has been cleaned up since he was last here. Shimmering, pristine, the place is ready for occupation by an army of consumers and office workers – but right now it feels eerie and uninviting.

  Gina stops and looks around. ‘Those over there,’ she says to Norton, pointing to a bank of six elevators. ‘Are they working?’

  ‘Gina, look, this is insane. What do you –’

  ‘Are they working?’

  He is struck, and a little disturbed, by how calm she sounds.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK.’

  They move towards the elevators.

  Norton looks over his shoulder and across the atrium. There are five people standing just inside the entranceway now – three construction workers, Ray Sullivan, and Norton’s director of development, Leo Spillane.

  No one is moving or speaking.

  Gina looks quickly at the elevator cars. Norton can see at once that she’s confused. Each car has a touch-screen terminal in front of it and operates on a digital control system that depends on traffic patterns, but since these patterns have yet to be established, the system hasn’t been fully programmed. She steps forward to one of the terminals and enters a number, but nothing happens. She’s about to get annoyed, and turn to Norton, when she sees that the last car doesn’t have a terminal in front of it. On the wall to the side, there is a plain silver push-button marked ‘Express.’

  She steps over and presses it.

  The door opens immediately.

  Norton’s heart sinks. This could get very complicated.

  ‘GINA!’

  Norton looks around.

  Leo Spillane is stepping forward. He worked closely with Noel and would have met Gina at the funeral.

  ‘Gina,’ he says, ‘please … whatever this is –’

  ‘Stay back.’

  Spillane stops.

  Gina shunts Vaughan and Norton into the elevator car. She leans her back against the door to hold it open. Standing half inside the car and half out, she raises a hand up into the air – the one with the gun in it.

  ‘Pass this message on to the police,’ she says, speaking directly to Spillane – and again Norton is alarmed by how composed she sounds. ‘Tell them I want to speak with Jackie Merrigan. Detective Superintendent Jackie Merrigan.’

  Then she withdraws into the elevator car. The door automatically whispers shut.

  She presses a button.

  Vaughan clears his throat. ‘Gina,’ he says, ‘I don’t und–’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Vaughan hesitates, looks as if he’s about to continue, but thinks the better of it.

  Norton’s heart is racing. His palms are sweaty. As the car starts its rapid, hushed ascent, he closes his eyes.

  When they step out of the elevator car into the middle of Level 48, Gina looks around and tries to get her bearings. The tower’s main elevator shafts are located in its central core. But the last time she was up here – with Norton, two weeks ago – they used a service elevator that was located at the end of the building, and the back end, the one facing north.

  Behind where they are now.

  She waves the gun at Vaughan and Norton, directing them to move forward.

  Vaughan hesitates.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he says, turning to her, ‘that you fully appreciate who I am.’

  Gina raises her arm and points the gun at his head. ‘I told you to shut up. Now move.’

  ‘OK.’ He holds a weary hand up. ‘OK.’

  As she follows the two men, she looks around – left, right, ahead, behind. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else up here. She notices, too, that a great deal of work has been done since that last visit. All the windows, floors and ceiling panels have been fitted, and the place no longer looks like a building site. It’s still an open space, but it’s a lot closer to becoming the teeming ecosystem of reception areas, office suites and conference rooms the architect no doubt intended it to be.

  At the end they stop next to a tall stack of what look like prefabricated wall or partition units. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, and the view, as before, is spectacular.

  But also a distraction.

  Gina turns around. She leans her head back onto the glass and immediately starts wondering how thick it is, and how easy it would be for a trained marksman perched outside on the jib section of the crane to pick her off. Then again – she thinks – someone in here could probably do the job just as easily. They’d come up in the service elevator and position themselves on either side of the central core, or behind any one of the nearby supporting columns.

  All of which means one thing: she doesn’t have much time.

  ‘Right,’ she says, turning to Vaughan. ‘Where were we?’

  Norton glares at her.

  Vaughan sighs peevishly. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Well then,’ Gina says, ‘let me remind you.’ She taps the floor with her right foot. ‘This building you have such a big stake in, that you’re here to inspect? I was saying I hope you don’t get too much of a shock when you do.’

  Vaughan looks at Norton and shrugs.

  ‘What’s she talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jimmy. She’s deranged. Look at her. I feel sorry for the bitch.’

  Gina says nothing. There is a long pause.

  ‘Oh, what is this?’ Vaughan says eventually. ‘Listen, I’m not a well man. I have a blood condition.’ He looks at his watch, and then at Gina. ‘I have meds to take. Can we cut to the chase here, please?’

  ‘Sure,’ she says, nodding her head in Norton’s direction. ‘But it has to come from him.’

  ‘Paddy?’

  Norton shakes his head. ‘I told you, Jimmy, she’s disturbed. She can’t come to terms with her brother’s death. She’s been making these wild allegations. It’s … it’s all bullshit.’

  ‘What kind of allegations?’

  ‘I don’t know. She thinks someone had her brother killed, but –’

  ‘Why?’

  Norton pauses. ‘Sorry, what … why does she think –’

  ‘No. Why would someone want to kill her brother?’

  ‘But that’s the thing, you see, she –’

  ‘No, no, wait a second. He was the chief engineer on this, right? So if there was a reason for someone to want to kill the man, I think we should know about it, don’t you?’

  Gina is about to say something when she hears a siren in the distance. She freezes, afraid to look, but does it anyway. She turns to the window and peers down. Three police cars, blue lights flashing, speeding along the quays.

  From up here they appear tiny.

  She turns back.

  Neither of the two men has moved.

  Vaughan is old and frail, but Norton? He could easily have lunged at her, twisted her arm back and wrenched the gun from her. So why didn’t he? Maybe he was unwilling to take the risk. Or maybe he’s assuming, hoping, that the Emergency Response Unit guys, when they get here, will waste no time and simply take her out with a clean shot to the head.

  ‘Paddy,’ she says, looking behind him, ‘why don’t you tell him about the report?’

  There is movement up ahead, behind the core section that houses the elevator shaft and stairwells – one person at least, possibly more.

  But it won’t be the police, not yet.

  She looks Norton in the eye, and sees a flicker of panic.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says.

  ‘Fine,’ Gina says, ‘whatever.’ She looks past his shoulder again, just for a second, and then turns to Vaughan. ‘Listen carefully because here it is, Mr Vaughan. A man named Dermot Flynn who worked with my brother at BCM wrote a report about this building we’re in. He showed the report to my brother, who showed it to him.’ She waves the gun in Norton’s direction. ‘Now I don’t know what’s in the report exactly – it was too
technical, I couldn’t understand it – but for some reason Mr Norton didn’t want anyone else to see it. And now, as a consequence, my brother is dead and Dermot Flynn is dead.’

  ‘This is nonsense,’ Norton says. ‘I told you she was crazy. They both died in accidents. There is no report.’

  The sirens have stopped.

  Vaughan is staring at her. It’s clear that he doesn’t know what to think.

  ‘Would you like to see it?’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The report.’

  ‘Jesus, Jimmy –’

  ‘Shut up, Paddy.’

  Gina reaches into her jacket pocket and takes out her mobile phone.

  ‘What’s your email address?’ she says.

  There is a pause. Vaughan tells her. She keys it in.

  ‘Gina,’ Norton says, a hint of desperation entering his voice, ‘what are you doing?’

  She hesitates. Her stomach is jumping. ‘I’m emailing him a copy of the report,’ she says. ‘Just like I emailed it this morning to Yves Baladur and Daniel Lazar.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I retrieved it yesterday from Dermot Flynn’s laptop –’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘– and stored it in my email account.’

  She waves the phone at him.

  He glares back.

  She looks at the display for a moment and then says to Vaughan, ‘Yep. There. It’s gone. Now you have it too.’

  As Vaughan turns to Norton, he takes out his own mobile. ‘What the hell’s this all about, Paddy?’

  Norton says nothing.

  Vaughan looks at the phone, squints at it, presses something and waits.

  Over his shoulder, Gina can see Ray Sullivan now – in the distance. He’s standing in full view, near the elevator. There is someone else behind him.

  She turns to the window again and glances down to check out what’s happening at street level. Traffic has been halted and is backed up along the quays. People are gathering everywhere in little clusters. Some appear to be pointing up, others to be talking on their phones.

  The jumping in her stomach is relentless.

  She turns around again.

  Norton is standing very still, staring at the floor.

  ‘Yep,’ Vaughan says. ‘I got it.’

  He folds his phone shut and puts it away.

  Gina holds hers down by her side.

  ‘I don’t know, Paddy,’ Vaughan says, shaking his head, ‘but it seems to me that she’s got you by the balls here.’ He pauses. ‘So you want to tell me what’s in this report?’ Sensing the activity behind him, he half looks over his shoulder. ‘And you might want to hurry.’

  Gina watches as Ray Sullivan moves out of view and a uniformed guard takes his place. A second guard appears, and then a third.

  She moves her own position, just slightly – closer to the stack of partition units.

  ‘Paddy,’ Vaughan snaps. ‘Are you going to make me read this damn thing? Or have me hear about it from someone else?’

  Norton looks up. He is pale. He shakes his head.

  ‘It was purely theoretical,’ he says slowly, almost in a whisper. ‘He’d made these ridiculous calculations based on a set of theoretical conditions. Believe me, you’ll see.’

  ‘What do you mean, conditions?’ Vaughan says impatiently. ‘What conditions? Weather conditions?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So we’re talking, what … wind?’

  ‘Yes. But quartering winds, tropical winds, stuff that doesn’t apply here, stuff that isn’t relevant.’

  ‘Shit,’ Vaughan says. ‘I don’t like the sound of this.’

  Gina looks at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s the most significant calculation you have to make. How much wind stress a building can absorb. Testing is exhaustive. It’s done in controlled tunnels. Everything is computer simulated, checked a thousand times.’ He turns to Norton. ‘Jesus, what are you telling me, there’s a mistake somewhere?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Norton exhales, struggling. ‘Noel’s design for the wind-bracing system included a series of diagonal steel girders, and for some reason it came to Flynn’s notice, don’t ask me how, that the joints of these girders were bolted together, and not welded, as Noel had specified –’

  ‘Jesus –’

  ‘No, no, bolting them together was fine. Welded joints would have been stronger all right, but the contractor decided, and legitimately, that welding them was too expensive, too time-consuming and, in fact, unnecessary. For here. But Flynn went ahead anyway and did all these additional load-bearing calculations, extrapolating this, that and the other – what’d happen if we had a tropical cyclone or a hurricane. Wild stuff. It was pure speculation. So don’t be under any illusion, the building complies with all required codes and regulations –’

  ‘But?’

  Norton swallows, looks around, exhales loudly.

  Gina is crouched down now – phone in her hand resting on one thigh, gun on the other – looking up at the two men. With the stack of partition units in the way, she can no longer see what the guards are up to, but nor can they see her.

  ‘What he found was that the increase in stress to the building in the switch from welding to bolts was negligible for local weather conditions … but not when you took quartering winds into consideration.’

  ‘What are quartering winds?’ Gina says.

  Vaughan looks down at her. ‘They’re winds that come in at a forty-five-degree angle and hit two sides of the building at once.’

  She nods, barely understanding any of the words in isolation, let alone the complete sentence.

  ‘In that scenario,’ Norton goes on, ‘the difference is marked, and from then on … it’s exponential.’

  Vaughan closes his eyes.

  ‘A simple increase of twelve or fifteen per cent could translate into an increase of … more than a hundred and thirty, a hundred and forty percent.’

  ‘Jesus –’

  ‘But only in conditions that are never going to happen, that’s the whole point. It’s like removing a safety net you don’t need in the first place. He fed in all this speculative data that was based on projected climate-change scenarios and the possible long-term consequences of global warming. It was ridiculous.’

  Gina looks up, glares at him. ‘You’re like a fucking child, do you know that? Trying to talk your way out of trouble. If the report was so ridiculous, then what was the problem? Why bury it?’

  Norton shrugs. ‘It was … not a problem as such, I mean, you couldn’t really –’

  ‘Look,’ Gina says, holding up the gun, ‘enough.’ She points it directly at him. ‘Do you want me to shoot you, too? In the fucking head?’

  ‘OK, OK. There was a problem. It was with his conclusion. He recommended that repairs be done immediately, that steel reinforcements be welded onto each of the building’s three hundred joints.’

  Vaughan whistles. ‘That would be expensive.’

  ‘Yes. Very.’

  ‘And best-case scenario you’d be looking at a … what, a six to nine-month delay?’

  ‘Easily, and with huge knock-on penalties for going over agreed completion dates. Plus, we’d miss the tax-incentive deadline.’

  ‘Not to mention what a PR catastrophe it’d be.’

  There is silence for a moment.

  ‘And if the repairs aren’t done?’ Gina then says.

  Norton stares down at her now with naked contempt. ‘You’re not going to let it go, are you? You’re like a dog after a bone. Like Flynn, like your brother.’ He pauses. ‘What is it you want, the bottom line in all of this, is that it?’

  She nods.

  ‘Right. Fine.’ He takes a deep breath and holds it in for a moment. ‘According to these calculations, without the repairs, and in storm conditions so rare you might only see them in this country once every hundred years, the building has a fifty per c
ent chance of, let’s say … of withstanding the pressure.’

  Gina shakes her head. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s not say that. Let’s say it another way. Let’s be as explicit as we can, shall we?’

  She gives the gun a little shake.

  Norton rolls his eyes and breathes out sharply.

  ‘OK, yeah, let’s. In certain extreme weather conditions, this building, Richmond Plaza, has a fifty per cent chance of collapsing. Are you happy now?’

  ‘Fifty per cent?’

  ‘According to these calculations, yes.’

  ‘And given the potential for loss of life and damage to surrounding property, you think that’s an acceptable level of risk?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m not worried at all.’ He pauses. ‘Because what I don’t accept is the data he was working with. I just don’t believe it would ever happen. But none of that would matter if the report got out, you see. Perception would be everything.’

  ‘Perception?’

  ‘Of course. The sound bite. Fifty per cent chance of collapsing? You think anyone’s going to see beyond that?’

  Gina presses her head back against the glass. ‘And that justifies having people killed? For completion dates, for tax purposes, for fucking PR?’

  Norton throws his hands up, as though in exasperation or despair.

  ‘There you go again with this crap,’ he says. ‘I didn’t have anyone killed. What do you take me for?’ He turns to Vaughan. ‘Jimmy, look –’

  ‘Save it, Paddy. I’m not interested.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is … I’m having a hard time believing this is actually happening. I just …’ He looks at his watch. ‘I just want to get on the next goddamned plane out of here.’

  ‘But what about –’

  Vaughan holds up an admonitory hand.

  Norton stops, his frustration palpable.

  As the two men stand there in silence, Gina checks something on her phone. Then she looks up at Vaughan. She waves the gun at him.

  ‘Go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go. Now. Get your meds. Catch your flight.’