He rubs his chest. He’s still breathing heavily.
Could he actually have done it?
He thinks of his daughter, Patricia, who lives in Chicago and would be the same age, more or less, as Gina. He tries to picture her standing there, in Gina’s place. He tries to drum up the appropriate level of emotion.
But it doesn’t come.
He feels flushed. He looks at himself in the rearview mirror.
He starts the car again.
By the time he’s on Strand Road, and the Narolet is kicking in, he begins to calm down, and to realise that the issue here isn’t whether or not he is capable, or was capable, of pushing Gina to her death; the issue is how close he came, again, to self-destructing.
But he has to think now, and be logical. Because Gina doesn’t actually know anything. She’s just speculating, and not even in any focused way. She’s looking for answers. She’s upset. She’s grieving.
Norton reaches down and turns on the CD player.
She seems to think that there’s some link between her brother’s death and the gangland killing of her nephew – but she isn’t going to find one. She also seems to think that her brother wouldn’t have driven his car if he was drunk – but the alcohol level in his bloodstream is on record, and is irrefutable.
So sooner or later, and despite an obvious – and obviously congenital – stubborn streak, she’ll have to come to her senses.
Norton goes through the junction at Merrion Gates. He turns right and heads back towards town.
But still – and just to be on the safe side – he wonders if he shouldn’t arrange to have Fitz keep an eye on her.
He relaxes his grip on the steering wheel.
The track that’s playing at the moment on the stereo is gorgeous – it’s the intermezzo from…
He can’t remember what it’s called. It was in an ad.
He’ll phone Fitz later on.
As he’s passing the RDS, Patricia comes back into his mind. She’s working as an administrator, or a curator, in a museum, or a gallery, or something – he isn’t quite sure what it is. She doesn’t come home very often. She and her mother had a falling out a few years ago. It was over… again, something – he isn’t clear on the details.
He pictures her once more – he can’t help it – pictures her where Gina was standing, directly in front of him, ready to be shoved, to fall backwards into the howling wind, into the abyss.
As the music gently climaxes, he feels a lump forming in his throat. When the music stops, he glances into the rearview mirror.
He has tears in his eyes.
3
It is a crisp and sunny morning in Manhattan and Larry Bolger is walking north along Madison Avenue. Every half block or so he looks to the right and catches a glimpse of himself reflected in a store window. Over the coming week – here in New York, in Boston, in Chicago – this figure he sees floating beside him will be meeting the top management teams of twenty major companies. He’ll be addressing chambers of commerce and Irish-American community groups. He’ll be visiting factories and business parks. He’ll be attending power breakfasts.
He’ll be talking himself blue in the face.
But for the moment at least, and for the next hour or two, he is off the radar, a fugitive from this intense, punishing schedule, as well as from the other people on the delegation – his private secretary, his handlers, the IDA executives, the journalists.
Twenty minutes ago, Bolger slipped out through a side entrance of the hotel on 57th Street where they’re all staying and headed up here on foot. He could have used a town car or taken a cab, but he decided to walk instead. After sending a quick text to Paula, he even switched off his mobile phone.
Because the truth is, he’s actually a little nervous about this.
He crosses at 71st Street.
Up ahead, on the sidewalk, a uniformed porter is chatting with the driver of a parked limousine. The granite-clad building the two men are standing in front of is imposing but fairly anonymous. The only thing that tells you it’s the Wilson Hotel is an oval plaque on the wall next to the entrance.
Bolger strolls past a second porter. He goes through a set of revolving doors and into the lobby. He is immediately struck by how sumptuous the place is inside – with its crystal chandeliers, enormous gilt mirrors and Louis XVI-style furniture.
He heads for the desk, but before he reaches it he spots Ray Sullivan approaching from the other side of the lobby.
‘Larry, good to see you,’ Sullivan says, arm outstretched. ‘Glad you could make it.’
They shake hands vigorously.
Bolger last met Sullivan a couple of years back, in Dublin, when Amcan was opening its new plant in one of the industrial estates.
‘We have a suite upstairs,’ Sullivan says, ‘so let’s just go on up, OK?’
‘Fine.’
Bolger loves the understatement.
We have a suite upstairs.
He knows that the Oberon Capital Group not only has a suite upstairs, it actually owns the whole hotel – along with about ten billion dollars’ worth of other stuff around the globe.
‘We’ll meet some people,’ Sullivan says as they’re getting into the elevator, ‘and then Mr Vaughan will join us for lunch.’
Mr Vaughan – James Vaughan, the old man – is a cofounder of Oberon. He’s also a Wall Street legend, a former deputy director of the CIA and a veteran of the Kennedy administration.
They get out on the fifth floor and walk along a wide, empty corridor. At the very end they arrive at a door, and Sullivan raps on it lightly.
Bolger’s stomach is jumping.
The door is opened by a young man, who nods at Sullivan and then stands aside. They pass through a sort of vestibule and emerge into a large reception room. At a quick glance Bolger counts six people – two standing, four sitting. They are all men. The ones who are sitting immediately stand up and there is a general hubbub of welcome. Moving around, Bolger shakes hands with each of them in turn. One is shortish and rotund, and Bolger recognises his name – he’s a Nobel prizewinning economist. The rest of them are tall and chiselled, each with the appearance and demeanour of a five-star general in civilian clothes, or of a presidential candidate. One of them, a senator, actually was a presidential candidate a few years ago. Another one is a former defence secretary. Then there is the CEO of Gideon Global, Don Ribcoff, whom Bolger has met before. The other two he’s not sure about.
‘Sit down, Larry,’ Ray Sullivan says, ushering him over to a sofa. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’
‘Er…’ Bolger would kill for a large whiskey.
‘Water’s fine,’ he says. ‘Sparkling, thanks.’
He lowers himself onto the sofa. The senator, the former defence secretary and the economist all sit down as well – but on the sofa opposite.
‘So, Larry,’ the senator says, ‘until a while ago, it looked like you guys over there in Ireland had pretty much rewritten the rule book on how to run a successful economy.’
‘Yeah,’ Bolger says, ‘it seems we were doing something right, I suppose.’
Hearing himself here, Bolger is suddenly appalled. This is America he’s in. They don’t do self-deprecation. He has to play it up.
‘Well, the thing is,’ he goes on quickly, ‘we’ve structured a corporate tax environment that allows enterprise to breathe, to really grow, so as long as we can resist harmonisation from Brussels and get out of this slump we all seem to be in at present, I don’t see why it shouldn’t continue to go our way.’
Over the years, Bolger has never been fazed by anything he’s ever had to do in his capacity as a public representative – but this feels different. This feels like a job interview.
‘Ah, Brussels,’ the former defence secretary says, and with more than a hint of sarcasm. ‘Our friends in the Commission.’