Winterland (11 page)

The idea horrifies him.

Exposure like that, of course, would be the least of his worries – because there’d also be protracted litigation, followed, almost certainly, by bankruptcy, disgrace, ruin.

Norton straightens his jacket and runs a hand across his hair.

Definitely, on reflection, he did the right thing.

He goes through the bedroom and out onto the landing. He looks at his watch: 4.45.

‘Miriam!’

‘Yes, yes, I’m coming.’

Miriam appears from her bedroom. She is wearing a navy suit, navy shoes and a navy pillbox hat. She looks elegant and appropriately sombre.

‘Which church is it?’ she says, adjusting one of her earrings.

‘Donnybrook.’

Miriam stands in front of the full-length mirror on the landing and repositions her hat. ‘Do you think there’ll be many people there?’

‘I’d say so, yeah,’ Norton replies. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s packed to the rafters.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. He was very popular.’

‘How well did
you
know him?’

‘Not very. I had dealings with him the odd time.’

Most recently, of course – Norton thinks – in the last week or so. And given what he soon found himself contemplating, that fact had naturally raised something of a red flag in his mind. But then he also remembered reading about Rafferty’s nephew in the paper, in a report about local gangs and DVD piracy.

‘Come on, Mo. There’ll be traffic.’

‘I’m
coming
.’

She finishes at the mirror and they both head downstairs.

It had seemed like a good plan – a few words in the back of his car with Fitz and that should have been more or less the size of it, at least as far as his own involvement was concerned.

But then look what happened.

They leave the house and get in the car. As he drives slowly across the gravel to the gates, Norton runs it through his mind once again. Monday night, the panic, the sleeplessness, the hours of waiting – how
close
he came to self-destructing. Then, on Tuesday morning, the phone call. It took him a long time to calm down after that, but as the day progressed, and he spoke to different people, the story
did
gel into place. He nevertheless found it hard to shake his sense of unease. It had been a very close thing.

Now though, on Thursday afternoon, as he drives to the church for the removal – where he will sit and pray in front of Noel Rafferty’s earthly remains – Norton feels calm again, and secure.

The panic is gone. The threat has been lifted.

It’s almost five o’clock and Larry Bolger is on the plinth outside Leinster House. He is looking over at Buswell’s. He has just left the chamber after a debate on stamp-duty reform and is waiting for his car. He knows that a group of four or five backbenchers is meeting in the hotel to discuss what are euphemistically called ‘developments’ and he wonders how they’re getting on.

The weirdest thing about this stage of a leadership challenge is that all you are required to do is behave as if it isn’t happening. Other people do the important stuff for you – the mobilising, the lobbying, the whispering.

‘Er … Larry, can I have a word?’

Bolger looks around and releases a low groan. ‘A word? There’s no such thing, Ken, not where
you’re
concerned, so no –’

‘Yeah, but this is –’

‘Look, I’ve no time at the moment.’ Miraculously, the car pulls up. ‘I’m on my way to a removal. Tomorrow maybe, or when I get back from the States.’

Bolger hurries down the steps and opens the back door of the car.

‘Larry, you’re going to
want
to hear this, believe me, because it’s –’

‘Some other time,
OK
? I’m busy.’

He gets in the car and bangs the door shut behind him.

The driver knows enough not to delay. ‘Good evening, Minister,’ he says, pulling away. ‘Where are we off to?’

Bolger takes a deep breath.

‘Er … Donnybrook, Billy. The church there on the corner. Thanks.’

Billy nods. They go out the main gates and turn left onto Kildare Street.

Bolger then leans back in his seat and exhales. Is he alone in finding the chief political correspondent of the
Irish
Independent
an epic pain in the arse? Like one or two of the other hacks in the press gallery, Ken Murphy is never off the radio talk shows and seems to claim ownership of practically every story that makes it into the news.

But at the same time, if this leadership bid is to succeed, Bolger realises – be it a messy heave, or a bloodless coup – he is going to have to be … well, a little more accommodating, and play the game.

He closes his eyes, luxuriating in a kind of steely clearheadedness – something he associates these days with not drinking.

The choreography of the next few months is going to be crucial, of course. The Paloma announcement the other day, his upcoming trade mission to the States, the opening of Richmond Plaza in the new year … each of these, incrementally, will ratchet up his profile – in the party, with the media, with the public at large.

Bolger opens his eyes again. They’re almost at Leeson Street Bridge.

It’s certainly been a long time coming. He entered politics in the mid-eighties – though as far as he remembers, and it’s all a bit vague now, standing for election hadn’t even been
his
idea. Frank, his brother, had held the seat originally but died, and then somehow Larry was persuaded to come back from Boston and contest it in the ensuing by-election. With plenty of backing from within the party, and much to his own surprise, he won the seat. What followed was a blur that has lasted two and a half decades, a blur of clinics, funerals, functions, branch meetings, Oireachtas committees and, every few years or so, like a recurring anxiety dream, the curious sensation of being raised shoulder-high by screaming mobs of your own supporters at a count centre. Eventually, a junior ministry materialised, along with a little national exposure – on
Morning Ireland
, on
Questions
and Answers
, on
Tonight with Vincent Browne
. Other junior portfolios came along, and then, at last, his first full seat at the cabinet table.

After that it was all very serious and grown-up – access, privilege, power.

Compromise.

He opens his eyes. They’re on Morehampton Road now, passing the old Sach’s Hotel.

But all of a sudden, for some reason, his mood has shifted. He feels anxious. He feels that familiar jumping in the pit of his stomach.

Then, as the car approaches the gates of the church, and he sees a big silver BMW pulling in just ahead of them, he realises why.

It’s because no matter how he looks at it, no matter from what angle, there is one constant in all of this, in his career, in his life, stretching right back to that surprise by-election of nineteen eighty whenever-it-was, and stretching right into his future, too, inescapable, looming like an Atlantic weather front. And that constant – over there now, struggling to climb out of his BMW – is, of course, Paddy Norton.

Despite her exhaustion (she didn’t get any sleep last night, and young Noel’s funeral was this morning), Gina immediately registers the contrast between yesterday’s removal in Dolanstown and the one today here in Donnybrook. Passing through the gates on the way in, she can’t help noticing all the BMWs, Mercs, Saabs and Jags. The church is smaller, too, but the crowd seems to be bigger. As she and Jennifer and her sisters (except for Catherine, who is at home, in bed, unconscious) get out of the funeral car and follow the coffin into the church and up the aisle towards the altar, Gina glances left and right at this congregation of what appear to be well-groomed middle-aged men and their brittle, pampered wives. There isn’t a hoodie or a tracksuit in sight. Instead, she sees silk suits, cashmere overcoats, fur coats – and
hats
, dozens of them (how many women yesterday were wearing hats?). And is it her imagination or is there something in the air, a certain pungency – a subtle fusion, perhaps, of incense, cologne and expensive perfume?

The ceremony passes quickly. It is dreamlike – the same words as yesterday, the same sentiments, the same skewed sense that none of this can possibly be for real. The hardest part – again, like yesterday – is when the members of the congregation file past the front pew to express their condolences. Although a form of torture, this also happens to be when Gina realises for the first time just how far Noel travelled in his life. She always knew that he was successful, but she is surprised to see certain people file past here, people he must have known, people whose circles he must have moved in – politicians, businessmen, sports stars, TV personalities. She realises how little she really knew him, and this adds to her heartache.

Afterwards, outside the church, the mood is sombre, but there is still an air of conviviality, as people greet each other, shake hands, slap shoulders and talk.

Jenny is very dignified, but she is frozen in her grief, moving slowly and saying almost nothing. Yvonne and Michelle, who are as tired as Gina, also find it hard to speak.

Gina, though, forces herself. She doesn’t know where to begin, or who to talk to, but she moves around, introducing herself to people, determined to get
some
kind of a fix on Monday night. It seems obvious to her that the sequence of events, at the very least, needs to be established. What she finds hard to take, however, is that no one else is asking any questions. An official version of Noel’s accident very quickly fell into place, and was accepted, but hasn’t it occurred to anyone that what happened was, well …
strange
? There is the supposed coincidence of the two deaths, Noel’s unaccounted-for trip into Wicklow and the downright unacceptable notion that he was drunk behind the wheel.

But it’s not that easy. Actually, it’s very awkward. How do you quiz people without coming across as abrupt, or rude, or possibly even – given how exhausted she is and must
look
– unhinged? Perhaps now is not the most suitable time for this. But when is? When else does she find practically everyone Noel knew herded together in the one location?

She talks, then, to people who knew Noel through work but didn’t really
know
him. She talks to people who knew him well but hadn’t seen him for ages. She talks to someone who regales her with anecdotes about Noel’s capacity for work, his dedication, his legendary perfectionism. She introduces herself to a TV presenter who apparently played a lot of poker with Noel.

As things break up and people begin leaving, Gina feels frustrated, as if she’s blown her one chance at this. But trying to get someone’s life into focus, trying to square up different people’s perspectives on the same person, is difficult. More than difficult. It’s like trying to pick mercury up with a fork. How do private investigators do it? How do biographers do it? Although she’s only starting, she already has a nagging sense of how futile this might prove to be.

There is a general invitation to come back to the house – Noel and Jenny’s new spread on Clyde Road. Despite how tired she is, Gina decides to go, and accepts a lift from Jenny’s brother, Harry. Yvonne and Michelle have to get back to Catherine’s and they leave. Goodbyes are said and very quickly the crowd disperses – cars inching towards the gates and feeding out into the evening traffic.

In the house people are received, coats are taken, drinks are served. Jenny sits in the main reception room, in an armchair, sipping a cup of tea. The room gradually fills up, as does the hallway outside, as well as a large kitchen area at the back. Gina hasn’t been here before and is amazed at how grand the place is. Noel and Jenny only moved into it from their place in Kilmacud a few weeks back and had been meaning to have family over. Gina stands with a glass of wine at the bay window in the main reception room – which is more like a ballroom – and looks out onto the floodlit front lawn.

She is alone, and her will has flagged, but when someone approaches her she musters energy from somewhere and introduces herself. She quickly finds that she is talking to a Detective Superintendent Jackie Merrigan. He is the first person she has met today who it turns out actually
spoke
to Noel on Monday night, and this fact animates her further. He tells her that he was a friend of Noel’s from years back and that it was he who informed Noel about their nephew’s murder.

‘You phoned him?’

‘Yes.’

Gina latches on to this and tries to find out as much as she can about the conversation. Merrigan is tall and slightly stooped. He’s in his fifties and has a shock of silvery white hair. He seems to understand Gina’s desperate need for information, that it’s part of the grieving process, and she, in turn, seems to understand that he is indulging her in this, and is grateful.

One fact that comes out of their exchange is that when Merrigan made the call, Noel was having a drink somewhere with Paddy Norton, the developer.

Gina nods along at this. ‘I see.’

Merrigan then turns to his left and looks around the room. ‘In fact,’ he says, pointing, ‘that’s him over there, in that group. The one in the dark red tie.’

Gina scans the room and zeroes in on the red tie.

She takes a sip from her wine. ‘Thanks,’ she says, almost in a whisper.

The room is full. Most people are in clusters of two or three, but standing in front of the fireplace (a huge marble affair, the fire roaring), and in a rough circle, are five men in suits. They are holding glasses of wine or whiskey, and two of them are smoking cigars. One of them is young, twenty-four or twenty-five, but the rest of them look older, mid-fifties maybe, or late fifties. The man wearing the dark red tie is holding forth about something. The others are listening.

As she makes her way across the room towards the group, Gina recognises one of them, and then another. The young guy, tall and thickset, is the captain of the Ireland rugby team. The man on Norton’s right, standing with his back to the fire, is a cabinet minister, Larry Bolger. The other two she doesn’t recognise, but they look generic – they could be barristers, solicitors, accountants,
anything
, bank executives, equity-fund managers.