by Alan Glynn
She’d also like to meet Sophie for lunch and talk about movies, talk about shoes.
But none of that, she knows, is going to happen for some time.
Gina flicks open the phone and calls Mark Griffin’s home number. Once more she gets through to his answering machine. Once more she rings off without leaving a message.
She’ll try again later.
Because if they’re both right about this, then they really need to talk.
Next, she scrolls down through her phone list. She has three numbers entered for Noel – home, mobile and work. She calls the third one.
This has been nagging at her since the other day. It doesn’t really fit in with the Larry Bolger scenario, but the more she thinks about it, the more it needs to be explained. Neurotic behavior is one thing. This was different. This was off the charts.
‘Good morning, BCM, can I help you?’
‘Yes, good morning,’ Gina says, adopting her no-nonsense office voice. ‘Can you put me through to Dermot Flynn, please?’
When Mark has finished throwing up, he staggers over to the washbasin and turns on the cold tap. He rinses his mouth out and splashes water on his face.
When he looks up and meets his reflection in the mirror, something occurs to him.
Why was Uncle Des always so angry? Up to now the working assumption has been that he never forgave himself for something that happened in the days following the crash. It was put about that Tony had been drunk at the wheel, which Des must have known to be highly unlikely, so either he said nothing at all, or he raised objections … but was told to shut up.
And did. For the rest of his life.
Why, though? Was he threatened, intimidated? Did he not have the balls to stand up to them?
Or maybe it was something else.
Again – like the rest of it – this is only speculation. But the more Mark thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Because Uncle Des’s anger wasn’t directed at other people – it was directed at himself. In fact, there was probably quite a thin line, where Des was concerned, between anger and self-reproach, between anger and self-loathing.
Mark goes back into the little office room. He turns to the stack of boxes containing the documents Aunt Lilly was sorting through the other week. He opens the first one and pulls out a thick wad of ESB and Bord Gáis bills, hundreds of them. After a moment he drops these back in the box, pushes the box aside and opens the next one down. It contains miscellaneous papers, tax certificates, letters, God knows what. The third box contains the bank statements.
Standing there, Mark thumbs through wads and wads of these, going back ten, fifteen, twenty years. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and he certainly doesn’t come across anything that jumps out at him – no large, unexplained deposits, for example. But is that really what he thinks? That they paid him off, that they bought his silence? That he accepted their offer … both of the money and of the life sentence that came with it – twenty-five years of silence, of bitterness, of corrosive guilt?
Maybe – except there’s nothing here to back this up. And would he find it anyway? Would that kind of payment show up on a normal bank statement?
Mark doesn’t have a clue.
Probably not, he thinks.
And that’s when he spots it.
The address. It changes. On the bank statements. From one month to the next. In April, Des and Lilly are at an address in Broadstone – and then suddenly in May they’re living here in Clontarf.
The accident happened in January.
Of the same year.
Mark looks around. He looks through the door and along the hallway. He’s always taken it for granted, this place where he grew up. It’s a large, detached redbrick Victorian house. It has four bedrooms, off-street parking, rear access and a substantial back garden. It’s ordinary enough, but twenty-five years ago it would have been a very dramatic trade-up from what had probably been a pokey little terraced house in Broadstone.
Mark feels his stomach lurch again.
There could be a hundred explanations for this, but –
He lets the wad of statements he’s holding slip from his hands. Loose pages fan out and glide, landing everywhere.
Uncle Des was a low-ranking civil servant on a very modest income. So how could he possibly have afforded to buy a house like this?
What happened?
Mark bends down and retrieves a few of the pages. Then he picks up a few more. He examines these closely, looking from one to the next, flicking them back and forth.
He swallows, feeling an uncomfortable lump in his throat.
Before May there were monthly mortgage repayments, presumably on the property in Broadstone. After May – it appears – these just stopped.
Mark lets go of the pages and stands up again.
They could easily have inherited the house from a relative and then sold the other one.
But no. Mark shakes his head. The timing is too much of a coincidence.
They fucking bought his silence.
Come on, Des, they probably said, stop this, would you? Leave it alone. There’s no point. And anyway, think of the boy, think of his future … we could maybe help you out there, you know …
Mark turns to face the window. He stares out at the long garden and thinks back to when he was a kid. He never really wanted for anything, did he? His uncle and aunt sent him to good schools. They took him on all those trips to Italy. Later, when he was at college, they bought him his first car.
He swallows again.
They helped him out when he was setting up his business.
They gave him the deposit on his house.
He closes his eyes.
Jesus Christ.
It was blood money. And they used him as a bargaining chip. Which means that his whole life, his education, his career, everything … it’s all been based on lies, on blood, on his own family’s blood.
He takes out his mobile phone.
And when Mark thinks they, of course he means him. He means Larry Bolger …
Standing there but looking out the window, he calls the number he got the other day from directory enquiries. When he gets through to the department press office he asks – politely, in a controlled voice – if someone could tell him what public engagements the minister has on for the rest of the day.
Then he turns back around and looks down. He selects three of the photos from the table and puts them into his jacket pocket. He walks out of the room and goes downstairs. But instead of leaving straightaway, he hesitates. He stands on the bottom step, with his hand on the banister.
Please, Mark, listen to me. Don’t do anything rash.
After a moment, he turns and goes into the kitchen. Over by the cooker, he pulls open a drawer that contains various trays of cutlery. He rummages around and selects a knife, a big one. It has a laminated wood handle, a long, narrow stainless-steel blade and a curved tip.
It is used – he thinks – for filleting fish.
He opens his jacket, but there isn’t anywhere for him to put it.
Using the blade of the knife, he makes a rip in the jacket’s silk lining. He slips the knife inside and then lets the jacket hang loosely to see how it feels.
It feels fine.
On his way out, he glances at himself in the hall mirror to see how it looks.
It looks fine, too.
‘Oh my God.’
Gina is off the stool now, her free hand flat on the counter, pressing down.
‘Yes, we’re all in shock here,’ the BCM receptionist is saying. ‘I mean, it’s just awful. No one can believe it.’
Gina doesn’t know what to say.
‘And of course, as well,’ the receptionist continues, ‘coming so soon after your brother.’
Gina winces. She turns around and leans back against the counter. ‘So … you’re saying it was an accident?’
‘Yeah, he stepped out onto the road, near where he lives apparently, and didn’t see the car
coming.’
People die on our roads every day of the week.
Gina closes her eyes. ‘And did, er …’ This isn’t the first question that occurs to her, but she asks it anyway. ‘Did he have any family?’
‘Yes. A wife and two little girls.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Jesus.’
Gina doesn’t ask any more questions.
When she gets off the phone, she walks over to the window and looks out. There’s been a break in the cloud cover. Crisp sunlight has replaced the grey of a few minutes earlier. But it’s not going to last.
It never does.
Gina shakes her head.
Another accident. What are the odds? Way too long for comfort. Which means that she was right before – this doesn’t fit in with the Larry Bolger scenario. Her whole thing with him was based on … what? Very little really. It was supposition. It was tenuous and fanciful. It was wishful thinking. This is still supposition, but it makes a lot more sense. The two men worked in the same office, they worked on the same projects and they both died a couple of weeks apart in what appeared to be road accidents. There is good reason to believe, however, that Noel was actually murdered. And it also seems clear to Gina – in retrospect anyway, from the little she saw of him the other day – that Dermot Flynn was walking around in fear for his life.
She turns away from the window.
So there must have been something going on at BCM. Big international firm? Contracts worth billions every year? They’d go to any lengths to protect their interests, wouldn’t they?
She holds her breath. The idea is simultaneously horrifying and exciting.
But then, letting go, she deflates.
Because …
What? Sensitive information got leaked? By accident? Deliberately? There was an ‘impropriety’ – something financial, something personal even? The scandal had to be covered up, and not everyone was prepared to cooperate?
Gina groans.
Whatever it might be, what chance does someone like her, a complete outsider, have of finding out? Who does she talk to? How does she even broach the subject? What kind of attitude does she adopt? What kind of vocabulary does she use?
And how soon, in the face of implacable corporate self-preservation, does she fold?
It occurs to Gina that maybe what’s required here is a countervailing force – someone with the authority to ask awkward questions and demand answers, someone with a ready-made attitude and vocabulary of their own.
Jackie Merrigan?
Although the detective superintendent wasn’t exactly sympathetic to the idea that Noel’s death was anything other than an accident, maybe when he factors in Dermot Flynn’s untimely passing, Gina thinks, then he’ll –
But before she can complete the thought, something else occurs to her.
Where does all of this leave Mark Griffin?
She rushes over to the counter and picks up her mobile. She calls his number again, and waits.
As before, the answering machine comes on.
Damn.
‘Mark, hi,’ she says. ‘It’s Gina Rafferty. Please call me.’ She repeats her own mobile number. ‘Please. It’s urgent. I think I might be wrong about … you know, what we were saying the other night. So call me, OK?’ She pauses. ‘And listen, whatever you do, don’t … don’t … just call me, OK?’
It takes Mark just under an hour to get to the Garryowen Business Institute in Terenure. Set in old church grounds – half of which have been redeveloped for residential use – the Institute consists of three single-storey modern buildings. There is a parking area to the front and a large playing field to the side. The parking area is more than half full, and Mark finds a space not too far from the main gates. He stays in the car after he has parked it, and looks around. This campus may be fairly nondescript, but the Institute has a reputation for churning out successful young entrepreneurs and future business leaders. Today it is hosting an IT conference, and the minister is due to address the delegates at half past two.
Mark looks at his watch.
It’s 2.17.
He shifts in the seat.
Driving out here he was aware all the time of the knife concealed in the lining of his jacket – he could feel it pressing against his side. He can feel it now.
He looks around again.
There are a few people gathered at the entrance to the largest of the three buildings. They could be a reception committee. Or smokers. Mark can’t quite see from this distance.
Another car – the second or third since he arrived – comes through the gates behind him and cruises around looking for a parking space.
Mark glances at his watch again: 2.21.
He puts his hand into his jacket pocket and takes out the three photographs. He glances at each of them in turn, but tentatively, as though afraid he’ll react again. But he doesn’t feel anything – except a curious sense that his emotions, as well as his reason, have been fast-tracked, heightened to a pitch where he’s no longer conscious of them. He feels that he’s now operating without any guidance system, that his internal GPS has been deactivated.
In the distance he hears seagulls squawking.
He puts the photographs back into his pocket. He opens the door of the car and gets out. He straightens up and automatically buttons his jacket – then remembers, and unbuttons it again.
He glances around. There is no one nearby. He reaches into the slit in the lining of his jacket, takes the knife by the handle and partially withdraws it.
He looks down. He tests his grip on the handle. When he’s satisfied, he eases it back in.
He starts walking very slowly towards the main building.
Thick grey clouds are gathering, and it seems as if it could rain at any second. The trees along the far side of the playing field – a straight line of tall evergreens – are swaying in the wind.
Mark doesn’t look back, but he’s aware of another car – or cars, maybe – coming in through the gates behind him. A moment later, a black Mercedes glides by on the driveway. It is followed by another car, a silver Opel. The two cars pull up at the main building, the ministerial car flush with the entrance.
More people have gathered, and as Mark gets closer he sees that it is a reception committee – made up, no doubt, of students, lecturers, administrative staff and conference delegates.
Two men get out of the second car first. They are in their late thirties or early forties, and are obviously Special Branch. One of them, medium height, thin, and with a moustache, walks forward and opens the back door of the Merc. The other one, tall and burly, goes straight inside the building.
The minister gets out and is greeted by a man in glasses and a grey suit – the Director of the Institute presumably.
Mark has walked to the edge of the parking area and approaches the little gathering from behind. He moves through it and within seconds is at the front – barely three yards away from the minister, who is standing with his arms folded, nodding, listening to the Director of the Institute.
Mark studies the Special Branch detective. He is standing next to the minister, and is doubtless armed – but Mark has the advantage here because no one will be expecting anything … because no one, surely, looks on this as any kind of a security risk. The scene, in any case, is informal, it’s relaxed, with the minister and the director – clearly for the benefit of those gathered around – engaging in some good-natured banter.
‘That’s right, the Venture Capital Symposium. Yes, I remember now. Lord, that must be, what –’
‘Two years ago.’
‘Two?’
Mark closes his eyes.
‘I’m afraid so, Minister. Tempus fugit, as the man said.’
‘Well, let me tell you, if greying hair and stomach ulcers are any index to go by, it feels a lot longer than that.’
This gets a generous laugh, and as Mark lets the sound of it wash over him he tries to visualise the ne
xt twenty seconds – to see himself pulling out the knife and lunging forward, driving the blade into the minister’s side, twisting it, shoving it up as far as it will go. Then releasing it and withdrawing. Then bedlam, maybe a gunshot or two, the minister falling forward into the arms of the director, both of them staggering sideways for a moment before falling over. Then the Special Branch man and others grabbing Mark, like in a loose scrum, forcing him down, pinning him to the ground.
Screams, groans, chaos.
Blood.
Mark opens his eyes. Now is the time to move. But his arm feels leaden all of a sudden. He feels leaden. It’s like an anaesthetic taking effect … those final few moments before you go under.
As he stares at the minister, in profile, Mark realises that this isn’t going to happen – that he can’t do it. So he just stands there, paralysed, disorientated, watching the next twenty seconds unfold for real – though in slow motion it seems, in silence: the director raising an arm and mouthing Shall we? at the minister, then guiding him towards the entrance to the building … the Special Branch man following close behind, the small crowd moving forward as well, people shuffling through the door, disappearing in twos and threes.
Then, from one second to the next, everyone has gone, and Mark is standing alone, out in the open.
Holding his breath.
Eventually, he exhales. His whole body is trembling. The anger is still there, still raging inside him, but its power has been undercut by an awful, creeping, undeniable sense of relief.
After a few more seconds, he puts a hand out to feel the first, tentative drops of rain, and turns to go – at which point he sees that he’s not alone.
Standing a couple of yards away, and looking directly at him, is a tall man in jeans and a green parka. ‘Have a word there, boss?’
Mark looks at him, confused. ‘Sorry … what?’
‘I need to have a word with you.’ The man then indicates to the right, with his hand, as though inviting Mark into an office.
Mark shakes his head. He moves away, and quickly, to the left, towards the parking area. The raindrops are more persistent now and he can feel them on his face.
