But once they get past it and are heading west across the city, Gina can think of only one thing. What is she letting herself in for here? Since Monday, either face to face or over the phone – and while remaining, effectively, complete strangers – she and Mark Griffin have had this series of intense, urgent, almost intimate conversations. It’s been very weird. Actually, in a way, she feels responsible for him – because if she hadn’t steered him in the direction of Larry Bolger, would he have…?
But a knife?
Her stomach sinks.
He seemed a little dangerous to her the other day, and she was obviously right about that. At the same time he seemed vulnerable.
Gina stares out of the window.
Soon her thoughts are a blur, like the view, which has become this gentle strobe effect, this seemingly endless, self-replicating pattern of semi-detached suburban houses.
After a while, tired, apprehensive, she closes her eyes.
Lucy in the sky…
He remembers that now. His father used to say it all the time, and Lucy used to love it, used to pretend that she could fly… arms out… running…
In that garden maybe? The one in the photo?
Mark shifts his position on the floor and winces. The pain is severe and constant, additional shoots of it accompanying even the slightest movement. But that’s exactly what he has to do now – move, and all the way over to the door, to open the damn thing, because otherwise how will Lucy get… Gina… how will Gina get in when she arrives?
He hasn’t been on his feet in a while and doesn’t know if it’s going to be possible. He leans back against the wooden crate and manoeuvres himself up, one inch, one searing shock wave of pain, at a time.
Lucy in the sky…
It’s funny, but his sister today – if she’d lived – would be about the same age as Gina is… and might even, he imagines, look a bit like her, too.
Up on his feet, he moves tentatively, shuffles forward, reaches out to the nearest sturdy object for support.
It seems blindingly obvious to him now, but having seen his family, even if only in photographs, having seen their faces, he realises what it is that in one form or another he’s been experiencing all these years. Loneliness. He’s been missing them. After all, he was only five at the time. He was happy. They were his entire world, and he loved them, as purely, as unconditionally, as viscerally, as only a small child can love.
And then one night it all came to a dead stop.
So what did he expect?
As he looks over at the door, the throbbing in his heart falls into a sort of rhythm with the throbbing in his side, making each footstep he has to take, each passing second, that shade more bearable.
And then, quite suddenly – grunting, gasping – he’s there. He flicks the catch with his hand and pulls the door open slightly, letting in a gust of cold air.
Mark doesn’t know why he called Gina. It seemed to make sense, and to be about the only physical action he was capable of taking – picking up his phone, pressing the keys – that wasn’t liable to kill him.
But it still felt proactive – contacting the one person with at least some understanding of his situation, the one person who could appreciate, for example, how important finding those photographs was for him.
And maybe she has new information.
Because didn’t he interrupt her? On the phone? Wasn’t she about to say something when he cut across her?
He wonders now what she’d been going to say.
He stares at the door.
In the meantime, though, there’s something he needs to do, and urgently – he needs to take a leak, has done for the best part of an hour. Back over there on the floor, he even debated whether or not he shouldn’t just surrender to it, and let it happen, let it flow, because what difference would it make?
But then he thought, no… not with Gina coming.
He shuffles across the floor towards the office, and when he gets there he stops and presses his forehead against the wooden door frame. He is dizzy and weak, and could easily, almost happily, collapse right here on the floor.
But he’s not going to.
He feels his way like a blind man along the wall and goes into the tiny bathroom. He struggles with his zip and eventually manages to get going, but halfway through he hears something outside – a car door being closed.
He groans, half in pain, half in relief. When Gina sees the state he’s in, she will insist on calling an ambulance, and he won’t be able to stop her. But that will be OK… now, at this stage, that will be OK.
He does up his zip with great difficulty and turns around.
When he hears the steel door clicking shut, he tries to call out – something like ‘In here’ or ‘I’m in the bathroom’, or just simply ‘Gina’, but he can’t get anything past his lips. His throat is dry as a bone.
Then he hears a voice, and freezes – because it isn’t Gina’s.
‘Hello?’
It’s a male voice.
‘Hello? Mr Griffin?’
Mr? Who is this?
Footsteps on the concrete floor.
‘Hello? Anyone here?’
There’s already a hint of impatience in the voice, and Mark feels a rising sense of dread. He doesn’t move, just leans against the wall and waits.
The next time he hears the voice it is closer – if not actually inside the office, then at the doorway or just outside it.
‘Griffin?’
No Mr this time.
Mark remains still.
He hears footsteps again, but this time they’re on wood – inside the office.
The door leading to the toilet is open, and from the angle Mark is standing at, he’s -
But then a sound cuts the air. It’s a mobile ring tone – the theme tune from some movie. An impatient sigh overlies it. The ring tone stops.
‘Yeah?’ Silence for a moment. Then, ‘There’s no sign of him, Shay. There’s a fucking car outside all right, but… I don’t know. I’ll have a squint around.’ The voice moves away. ‘Look, I have to go. Your one’ll be here any minute. Give us a bell in half an hour if you haven’t heard from me, right?’
Footsteps again, back on concrete, receding.
No sign of him? Your one? Here any minute?
How does he know all of this?
Mark pats his jacket pocket for his own mobile, to call Gina, to warn her… but shit, it’s not there. He left it on the floor over by the wooden crate.
Fuck… what has he done?
Mark leans back against the wall and slides down into a sitting position on the floor, next to the toilet bowl.
Calling her in the first place was clearly a mistake because… because whoever this guy is, he must have been listening in…
And that guy today, at the Garryowen Institute, how did he know that Mark would be there?
They must have been following him all along; there must have been… operatives, surveillance, everything…
The pain is almost unbearable now, and Mark can feel himself sliding even further, down into an abyss of darkness, but he fights it, pushes himself back up against the wall, off the floor, and into a standing position again.
He can’t let this happen.
He can’t…
But what he can’t do either is stay here, where he is, in the warehouse, because he wouldn’t stand a chance, not if it came to…
What he needs is to get away, to raise the alarm, he needs to…
Up…
He looks up. High above the toilet there is a window. It’s small, but…