‘Er… at home. In her apartment. She’s been there all day.’
Norton stands up. It’s darker than when he sat down, and chillier. City lights are shimmering now along the bay.
He looks at Fitz. ‘Well, what the fuck are you waiting for? Get back there. Stay on top of her. Maybe she’ll phone Griffin again. Maybe he’ll phone her.’
6
Gina’s mobile rings at a quarter to eight. She’s on the sofa watching an old episode of Seinfeld. Half watching it. Not really watching it at all. She presses Mute on the remote and looks over at the desk, at her phone, stares at it – disinclined, though, to get up and answer it. She’s not in the mood for dealing with anyone.
Earlier in the day her incipient panic gave way to despondency, then torpor. After a brief but humiliating conversation with that journalist she threw her mobile on the desk, went into the bedroom – still dressed for work – and lay down. She was fuming.
But she knew he was right.
If she’d been more explicit and mentioned people by name, he still would have said what he said, which was, ‘Yeah, fine, great, but where’s the evidence?’
Later, in the afternoon, she changed into jeans and a T-shirt. She made coffee, sat at her desk and went online in the vague hope of… she didn’t really know what. She googled BCM and found out as much as she could about the company her brother worked for. She followed links to other engineering companies. She read an official report on an EU website about corporate malfeasance. She read an article somewhere else about a recent scandal in Greece involving bribery, blackmail and a couple of supposedly accidental deaths – which, when she first came across it, sent a little pulse of excitement through her system, as though the story might actually provide her with some sort of corroboration. But the excitement didn’t last, because none of it was relevant. It wasn’t evidence of anything. It was stuff on the Internet. It was stuff she’d have to be out of her mind to imagine could have any bearing on anything.
And as she waits now for the phone to ring out – hours later, slumped on the sofa – she thinks, Yes, out of my mind, that feels about right. Eventually, though, when the phone does stop, she can’t help getting up off the sofa and going over to it.
One missed call. New number.
She presses Reply. She stands there, waiting. She is out of her mind.
It answers. ‘Gina?’
She recognises the voice straightaway. ‘Mark?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you OK? Where are you? Did you get my message?’
‘No, I’m… message?’
‘I left a message on your home phone this morning, I didn’t have your mobile number.’
‘I -’
‘It’s just, I was saying… I think I’m maybe on the wrong track, about Bolger. I mean, it doesn’t seem -’
‘I went… after him today -’
‘What?’
‘At least tried to. I didn’t come close.’
‘What do you mean went after him?’
Silence.
‘Mark?’
‘I tried to… attack him.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I really wanted to, but… I didn’t even…’ He stops here, struggling, it seems, to get the words out.
Gina turns and looks at the TV, as though for assistance on this, as though it should be running a news flash or something, a crawl, anything. What she sees instead is Kramer hurtling through the door of Jerry’s apartment.
She looks away again.
‘You didn’t even what?’
‘I had a knife. I -’
‘Oh God.’
‘I didn’t even take it out. I couldn’t. I was just standing there, looking at him, and -’
‘Where was this?’
He explains, but his voice is shaky, and he pauses constantly to take deep breaths. When he gets to the part about sticking the knife in the guy’s leg, Gina flinches.
‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘What happened then? Did you get hurt? You sound -’
‘No,’ he says quickly. ‘I didn’t. I’m… I’m fine.’
‘Well, you don’t sound fine. At all.’ She waits, but he doesn’t respond. ‘You actually sound awful, Mark. Spacy. Are you OK? Where are you?’
He still doesn’t answer.
‘Mark?’
‘Listen,’ he then says. ‘I… I finally saw them. Today. For the first time in…I saw them. Saw what they looked like.’
Gina closes her eyes. ‘Who?’ she whispers.
‘My family.’ He pauses. ‘I’m looking at them now. Lucy was so small, she…’
‘Mark?’
‘…she was tiny, but the funny thing is… what I remember is…how big she was, I remember her hands, her -’
‘Mark,’ Gina pleads.
‘What?’
‘Where are you?’
He tells her. But he says he can’t move. He’s afraid to move. He’s been sitting here for ages, maybe hours – he doesn’t know. His heart is pounding, he says, like it’s about to explode. He feels sick.
‘That’s… that’s anxiety,’ Gina says, ‘trauma… it’s post, er…’ She doesn’t know what she’s saying. ‘You’re in shock.’ She pauses. ‘Mark, do you want me to come out there?’
‘Yes.’ He groans. ‘No.’ He groans again. ‘Would you mind?’
She takes directions. The Cherryvale Industrial Estate – right at the entrance, third row along, eighth warehouse on the left.
Unit 46.
Norton is standing in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel, waiting for Ray Sullivan to appear, when his phone rings. Sullivan has made a surprise stopover on his way to a conference in Vienna and wants to have dinner. Norton didn’t mind changing his plans – the opening of a Friel revival at the Gate – but he’s agitated about what’s going on and isn’t exactly in the mood right now for a full, high-energy dose of Ray Sullivan. He’d much prefer to be sitting in a theatre, constrained to silence, letting his mind wander.
He looks at the display. It’s Fitz, which is good. Maybe. Hopefully.
He presses Answer and holds the phone up to his ear. ‘Yeah?’
‘Paddy, listen, I’m in the car. I’ve located your man.’
Norton is relieved. But what now? And does he really want to know? He glances around the lobby. What he said in the carpark – standing there, doors open, wind blowing all around them – was that he didn’t want the details, just the broad strokes.
The timeline.
He said he wanted closure.
‘Paddy? You there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘OK. So I’ll talk to you in a while then?’
‘Yeah. Good. Good man.’
That’s it.
As Norton is putting his phone away, he glances across the lobby and sees Ray Sullivan stepping out of an elevator.
Gina puts on a sweater and then her brown leather jacket. On the pavement outside her building, waiting for the taxi, she zips the jacket up. The rain has moved on and the sky is clear, but it’s cold.
As she wills the taxi to arrive, her heart is pounding.
She looks up and down the quays, sighs, turns.
The building she lives in is just one of many in this riverside regeneration, but there is a desolate feel to the place at night. At ground level everything is closed, except for the odd Spar, or empty Italian restaurant or theme pub attached to a new hotel. The streets here, between these new hotels and new apartment blocks, lack any atmosphere – they seem forced, a developer’s idea of ‘new’ city living.
Gina still has a hard time thinking of this as town.
The taxi arrives.
The driver appears to be the silent type, which is good, but instead of going back the way he came, from town, he heads for the toll bridge. This makes sense – it’s just that Gina isn’t prepared for the shock of having Richmond Plaza loom up on her so suddenly like that.