‘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.’