Terry Stack, Electrical Contractor.
‘Feel free,’ he says, ‘if you ever want to contact me.’
She nods, but doesn’t say anything.
‘Any time of the day or night,’ he adds. ‘It’s a twenty-four-hour service.’ He winks at her. ‘Emergency call-out.’
She nods again and says, ‘OK. Whatever. Thanks.’
Then she slides his card off the table and puts it into her wallet.
Stack picks up his pint and drains it. ‘Right, love,’ he says, putting the glass back down. ‘Take it easy.’
He walks off. He nods at the barman as he passes. Three guys in hoodies follow him out.
Gina’s stomach is jumping. She wants to leave now, too, but decides to hang on for a couple of minutes.
She takes a sip from her Corona.
She rubs her eyes and wonders if she shouldn’t go back and speak to everyone again. If so, who does she start with?
Eventually she puts her wallet away and slides out of the booth. On her way over to the door, she glances up at the TV screen above the alcove.
The news is still on. The German Chancellor is standing at a podium, addressing a press conference.
As Gina opens the door, she braces herself for the cold night air.
5
Mark is that close to calling the waiter over and ordering a drink.
Just to make this bearable.
The atmosphere tonight at Roscoe’s is lively – but not at this table. At this table, to put it mildly, things are a little strained.
Mark picks at his rocket salad. The building contractor, a small, muscular Corkman in his early sixties, moves asparagus tips around on his plate and tells a rambling story about his early days in London. The fat accountant concentrates on his fish cakes in blue-cheese sauce.
There is a bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water in the centre of the table and Mark stares at the label on it.
How could he have been so naive?
It has taken him until this, his third meeting with the building contractor, to realise that the elaborate dance of negotiations they’ve been involved in so far has really been about getting Mark to pay some money up front before any agreement can be reached. The builder hasn’t said anything explicit, but with one of his accountants sitting beside him this evening it’s clear he wants to take the matter to the next level.
He probably assumes that Mark has been playing some kind of hardball. It won’t have occurred to him that Mark is actually an idiot. In fact, it’s only when the figure of twenty thousand euro is mentioned – albeit in a suitably ambiguous context – that it dawns on Mark what is actually happening. He can’t believe he didn’t see it coming.
And they’re only on their starters.
Which is why he’d kill for some neat gin – and served, preferably, in a pint glass. But the builder and the accountant aren’t drinking, so Mark isn’t going to risk it.
He concentrates on his salad, the fat accountant mops up what’s left of his blue-cheese sauce and the builder goes on talking. It soon becomes obvious, however, that the builder is one of those people who can’t rein in irrelevant detail when telling a story, because he’s now caught up in establishing exactly when in 1969, to the week, some event – which is unrelated to the main part of the story – occurred.
Mark goes on staring at the bottle of San Pellegrino.
He doesn’t know what kind of signals he’s sending out here, but he’s pretty sure they’re mixed. Given that he really wants this contract but appears unwilling to pay for it, you’d think he’d be a little more concerned.
But the truth is Mark has been distracted of late.
He looks up.
The builder’s story is drawing to a close. Then the waiter appears and starts clearing away their plates.
‘Are you all right there, Mark?’ the accountant says. ‘You’re very quiet this evening.’
‘Yeah, no, I’m… I’m fine.’
An awkward silence follows. Sensing Mark’s apparent unwillingness to engage with the substantive issue, the accountant clears his throat and says, ‘So, did you see that about Larry Bolger?’
Mark tenses.
The builder whistles and says, ‘Yeah, Jesus, I reckon it’s going to be wall-to-wall fucking Larry for the next week at least.’
Mark is aware that something happened today, but he isn’t sure what.
‘They’re already calling for his resignation,’ the accountant says, ‘but I can’t see him giving in that easily, can you?’
‘No,’ the builder says, ‘especially as I’d say the leak came from within the party.’
‘Would you?’
‘Oh God yeah.’ He waits for the waiter to move off before he continues. ‘There’s an element in HQ trying to undermine him. It’s this crack he’s taking at the leadership. I’d lay even money on it.’
Mark’s impulse here is to remain silent. But he doesn’t. ‘What happened?’ he asks. ‘I missed it.’
‘It was in the Independent this morning,’ the builder says. ‘Ken Murphy is claiming that Bolger owes some bookie ten grand. Now he could probably get around that, but he was apparently having it off with the bookie’s wife as well.’
‘He’s a gouger,’ the accountant says. ‘He always was.’
‘Well, he’s had his fair share of controversies down through the years, that’s for sure.’
Mark’s pulse quickens. ‘What controversies?’
‘Oh, different things, gaffes, putting his foot in it, a fondness for the gargle, nothing major.’ He pauses. ‘Though it really goes back to the beginning, I suppose, the whiff does – if you know what I mean.’
‘No,’ Mark says, shaking his head, ‘I don’t.’
The builder clicks his tongue. ‘Well…’ He draws the word out. ‘Neither of you would remember it, but when Larry was first elected there was quite a bit of… talk.’
He stops and looks around, as though to check if anyone behind them or next to them is listening. Then he looks at Mark, and perhaps in that moment realises they don’t know each other well enough to be having this kind of conversation.
But Mark isn’t going to let it go. He leans forward, and says, ‘What kind of talk?’
The builder hesitates, alarmed suddenly at the urgency in Mark’s voice. ‘Look, to be honest,’ he says, ‘I don’t really know. It was just talk, and anyway -’
‘Didn’t Bolger contest the seat,’ the accountant cuts in, ‘after his brother died?’
‘Yeah, he did,’ the builder says. ‘Yeah.’
‘So what happened? How did the brother die?’
‘Well, that’s just it… he died in a car crash.’
Mark feels flushed all of a sudden. He thought he could handle this, but now he isn’t sure.
The builder exhales loudly. ‘It was horrendous… three or four people were killed.’ He shakes his head. ‘It was awful.’
The accountant nods along. ‘And?’
‘There were questions about how it happened, apparently. At the time. Anomalies. But with old man Bolger around, and the likes of Romy Mulcahy, that all got hushed up pretty quickly. Or maybe there was nothing to hush up, I don’t know. I was talking to Paddy Norton about it once and he said it was all nonsense.’
Anomalies?
That’s the only word Mark hears and it cuts into him like a knife. ‘What anomalies?’ he whispers.
The builder turns to him but again seems reluctant to continue.
Mark leans forward even more. ‘I asked you… what anomalies?’
‘Look, you know what,’ the builder says, ‘forget about it. There are strict libel laws in this country and I’m not -’