Bloodland: A Novel (22 page)

The entrance to the apartment building where the Bonaccis live is a high, arched wooden doorway. He presses their buzzer and is let in. The contrast between the street outside and the courtyard in here is quite striking. There are colonnades, hanging flower baskets and, in the centre, what looks like an old stone well.

There is a stairway to the left and Jimmy goes up two flights. Here, at an open door, he is greeted by a slim, studious-looking teenage girl in jeans and a black T-shirt.

‘Francesca?’

‘Hello.’ She nods, extends her hand. ‘Jimmy.’

They shake, and she leads him into a small entrance hall.

‘May I present my mother,’ Francesca says, as an elegant woman in her mid-forties appears from behind her.

Jimmy steps forward and shakes hands with Signora Bonacci. He can see the resemblance straightaway, same eyes, cheekbones, mouth. She is casually dressed as well, though more expensively than her daughter, and with more jewellery. Her smile is open and friendly, but there is something guarded about her – naturally enough, Jimmy supposes, letting a stranger into her house, and a journalist at that.

‘It’s very kind of you to see me,’ he says. ‘Signora Bonacci.’

Francesca laughs – at his pronunciation, he assumes. ‘You can call her Pina,’ she says. ‘Everybody does.’

Jimmy looks at her. ‘Pina?’

‘It’s short for Giuseppina.’

‘And of course,’ her mother adds, ‘it’s easier to pronounce.’

‘Ah, you do speak English.’

‘A little. Francesca is better at it.’ She smiles again. ‘I understand … most … of things.’

‘OK, that’s good, because I would like to explain myself.’

‘Yes, but … please,’ Pina Bonacci says, indicating for him to follow her.

They move to the main living area, which is bright and spacious, with marble floors and high ceilings. There are some modern touches – a plasma TV, metal-grey bookshelves and track lighting – but the room has a conservative, old-fashioned feel to it.

They sit in chintzy sofas around a low antique table. In the middle of the table there is a glass bowl filled with fruit.

‘Once again,’ Jimmy says, ‘thank you for seeing me.’ In as straight a way as possible, he then explains who he is and what he is doing. He makes no great claims for himself and is clear about his reasons for coming. He really has nothing to offer them, he says, except for a series of questions. And he makes no promises either, except to say that he will go wherever their answers take him.

Pina Bonacci nods along to most of this, and Jimmy is fairly certain that she understands him. Francesca remains still, with her head down.

When he finishes speaking, she looks up. ‘So. These questions. What are they?’

Jimmy shifts his position slightly on the sofa. He’s not sure what to make of her tone. ‘Well, first of all, Francesca, I know very little about your father. Can you tell me what he was like?’

There is silence for a moment. Then the mother and daughter turn to each other, and smile.

Jimmy is relieved at this.

‘Gianni was a good man,’ Pina says, looking at him. ‘A good husband and father.’ She turns back to Francesca. ‘Husband,
giusto
?’

Francesca nods, and then laughs. ‘
Mamma, dai
.’

Jimmy stares at them both. They’re a good double act. This could have been quite difficult, but so far they seem on a fairly even keel. If anything, Francesca is the more unpredictable of the two, the harder one to read.

‘My father was very serious,’ she says, and smiles again. ‘Like me.’

She certainly looks serious, with her glasses and hair pulled back into a ponytail. Jimmy imagines that the ordeal she went through three years ago must have accelerated the growing up process quite a bit.

At the same time, it appears, she can be quite playful.

‘Serious in what way?’ he says. ‘Your father, I mean.’

Over the next thirty minutes or so, taking it in turns, both in English and Italian – sometimes translated for him, sometimes not – Francesca and Pina talk breathlessly about their Gianni. Jimmy gets the impression that this is something they’ve maybe wanted and needed to do for some considerable time, but just haven’t had the right audience, the right opportunity – which he’s now providing, and they’re seizing on with barely contained glee. He wonders what it is, the mechanism here – is it the fact that he’s a foreigner and this somehow gives them a licence to talk freely, as though it doesn’t really count? Or is it him, what Maria Monaghan called his sympathetic face? Possibly a bit of both, not that it matters.

The point is, they’re
talking
.

Though so far it’s all been about Gianni Bonacci’s life, nothing about his death. They tell him he was passionate about movies and jazz, that he inherited hundreds of albums from his own father, Blue Note LPs with all the original cover art, that there’s an annual jazz festival here at the Teatro Romano and Gianni never missed a gig; that he was a great cook, did the best porcini risotto you’ve ever tasted; and wine –
o dio mio
– how Gianni loved his wine; but that he was also sporty, and went cycling and skiing.

At one point, Francesca gets up and retrieves some photos from a drawer to show Jimmy: Gianni with her, with Pina, with both of them, Gianni on the slopes of Madonna di Campiglio, Gianni in an office, at a restaurant, outside the UN Headquarters in New York, Gianni in a jeep somewhere, by a river, up a mountain.

‘He travelled a lot, for his work,’ Francesca says, as she hands him another picture.

Jimmy remembers Gary Lynch’s description of Bonacci … what was it, short and weedy? From here, that seems a little unfair. He’s not tall, and his thick black-rimmed glasses make him look a bit nerdy, but the image Jimmy is getting of the man from his wife and daughter is an altogether more rounded one than that.

It occurs to Jimmy then that any mention of Susie Monaghan will have to be handled very delicately.

‘Tell me about his work,’ he says.

‘Well, my father was an employee of l’ONU, the UN. He worked for the Directorate of Ethics in Geneva, but had an office in Milan. He went to many conferences and visited … sites, industrial plants, all over the world. He was responsible for formulating policy and procedures on corporate ethics. Accountability, implementation, that sort of thing.’ She pauses. ‘He was a lawyer, of Criminal Justice, but also had degrees in Organisational Psychology and Labour Relations.’

Jimmy gets the impression that this isn’t the first time she’s reeled off these facts.

‘He was very well respected.’

‘I’m sure he was. Of course. I have no doubt.’

‘But,’ Pina Bonacci leans forward. ‘He had, er…’ She turns and whispers something to Francesca, who whispers something back. Then she faces Jimmy again. ‘He had enemies. He
made
enemies. Because of his work.’

Jimmy nods. ‘Can you elaborate on that?’

Pina remains hunched forward, searching for the words. She seems pained.

Definite mood shift.

‘He had no real power, but…’ Clicking her fingers, she turns to Francesca and releases a torrent of Italian. Francesca listens, then takes a deep breath and looks at Jimmy. ‘The Directorate of Ethics couldn’t enforce change or impose new practices on corporations, but their reports could create pressures, public relations pressures. In certain cases, these could be –
were
, in fact – extremely damaging.’

‘I see.’

‘Contracts were cancelled. Losses were incurred.’

Jimmy looks at her. Something is either very close here, or it isn’t. The answer Francesca gives to his next question is either going to be very specific or maddeningly vague.

He suspects he knows which.

‘Francesca,’ he says, leaning forward, ‘can you trace a direct line between the two, between something your father ever wrote or said and one of these examples of, let’s call it … corporate discontent?’

She shrugs. ‘Did you not look at that link I sent you?’

‘Yeah, I did, of course.’ He pauses, sighs. ‘Well, sort of. It was in
Italian
, Francesca.’

‘OK.’ She holds up a hand. ‘One second.’ She and Pina then exchange another few rapid, labyrinthine sentences. When they’ve finished, Pina stands up. ‘Jimmy, I hope you like, er…’ She looks at Francesca. ‘
Frutti di mare
?’

‘Seafood.’

She looks back at Jimmy. ‘I hope you like seafood.’

He nods. ‘Yes, absolutely.’

‘Good. Now, please excuse me.’ She turns and heads over towards what Jimmy sees through an open door is the kitchen.

Then Francesca stands up as well. ‘Wait here a moment,’ she says. ‘I will get my laptop.’

*   *   *

Sitting across from Dave Conway are three pink-faced little pricks in expensive suits and sober ties. Spread out before them on the glass table are BlackBerrys and bottles of water, though no laptops – that’s because there won’t be any third degree here today, no advanced interrogation techniques. It’s all meant to be informal and getting-to-know-you. Black Vine Partners is a Philadelphia-based private equity fund and these boys – which is what they are – have flown in to ‘scope out’ Conway Holdings.

It’s just that Dave Conway is in no mood this afternoon to be scoped out.

Hollowed
out is more how he feels.

That whiskey he drank last night after Phil Sweeney left – the three original shots followed by another four or five – certainly took their toll. When he got up this morning he felt like shit and the feeling hasn’t really lifted.

All day, too, he’s been trying to calculate the cost of pissing Phil Sweeney off. Traditionally, Sweeney has been the great buffer zone between bad things happening, and how, when or even if those bad things show up in the news cycle – so he’s not someone you want to have outside of your tent, unzipping his fly.

But then again, in his hungover state, Conway can no longer even be sure there
is
a tent.

Across the table, Black Vine’s Director of Investor Relations, the pink-faced little prick in the middle, is delivering a tedious monologue on the European debt crisis.

Conway is only half listening. His sense of things falling apart is too acute now for any of this to matter. Even if he manages to get the investment money from these guys, which is doubtful, it won’t stem the tide. Susie Monaghan is out there, Larry Bolger is out there, this Jimmy Gilroy is out there … not to mention all the lies and misinformation, all the suspicion and paranoia.

He closes his eyes.

Everyone running for cover. It’s been building for days. And what was
his
solution? In the circumstances? It was only a two-minute phone call, but the more he replays it in his head, the less it makes sense to him.

‘Mr Conway?’

Because what did he imagine it was going to achieve? In fact, what on earth was he
thinking
?

‘Mr Conway?’

And what on earth – for that matter – was he thinking three years ago when he last spoke to Don Ribcoff?

‘
Mr Conway?
’

‘Yeah.’ He opens his eyes. ‘What?’

The Director of Investor Relations is smiling at him, but it’s a smile of bewilderment. ‘We were wondering,’ he says, reaching for his bottle of water, ‘if you could tell us something about the sale of First Continental Resources to BRX?’

Conway looks at him, and then at the others. These guys are at it now, too? Martin Boyle had warned him that they’d want to talk about this, but suddenly their interest seems a little pointed. What do they want to know? And why?

He shrugs. ‘It was … a straightforward deal. Nothing special.’

‘Oh come now, Mr Conway, a hundred million dollars for a disused copper mine?’ He half turns, for support, to the guy on his left. ‘There must be an interesting story behind
that
.’

Oh come now?
This irritates the shit out of Conway and he can feel any sense of perspective he’s supposed to have slipping away. He’s just glad that Martin Boyle isn’t in the room. ‘Well, if there is,’ he says, ‘
you’re
not going to hear it.’

‘Excuse me?’

Where would he begin in any case? It’s not something that easily lends itself to being told as an anecdote – which was true from the start, even long before that interfering little bastard Gianni Bonacci entered the equation.

‘It’s not something I wish to discuss.’

‘It’s not –’ The Director of Investor Relations leans forward, barely able to conceal his disbelief. ‘Can you explain that? I don’t understand.’

Conway leans forward to meet him. ‘There’s nothing to understand. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Oh.’

The three little pricks turn to each other, muttering and pulling confused faces.

‘But Mr Conway,’ the one on the right then says, ‘this is your party piece. Nothing else you’ve got distinguishes you in
any
way. If we don’t hear this’ – he clicks his tongue – ‘we’re not hearing anything.’

Conway nods his head in silence for a while. ‘Right,’ he says eventually, ‘I guess this meeting is over then.’

*   *   *

As Bolger opens the door of the hotel room and steps out into the corridor, he feels a certain measure of relief. This is uncharted territory here and it’d be very easy to make a mistake, to rush into something he’d later regret. On reflection, what he should have done was play a longer game, more hardball, make it so that
he
was calling the shots. He should have asked for details, the terms and conditions, got
them
to sweat for a bit.

Another couple of days at least.

In any case, this messing around, the waiting – it has helped him to make up his mind.

And it’s fine.

Though as he walks along the corridor, his irritation increases.

Shortly.

What was he, waiting at the dentist’s? After all, he’s a former prime minister, a retired national leader. Isn’t that deserving of a little respect? Not that he means this in an arrogant way, or that he’s brimming over with self-belief or anything. In fact, he has as much of a store of self-loathing and Catholic guilt as the next man – the next Irishman, at any rate – but these Adelphi people wouldn’t know that. They wouldn’t be aware of his personal failings, or of the torment he’s been suffering recently.