Winterland (12 page)

She reaches the edge of the circle and stops, uncertain how to proceed. She can’t just break in here – though she
could
.

Jenny’s brother passes with a bottle of wine and offers her a refill.

She holds up her glass. ‘Thanks. How’s Jen?’

‘She’s OK. Well. I don’t think it’s really hit her yet.’

‘No, me neither.’

‘It’s sad, you know,’ Harry goes on. ‘She keeps looking around this place in disbelief. There are still a few boxes upstairs they haven’t unpacked yet.’

This hits Gina hard, and she groans, ‘Oh
God
.’ It’s another unexpected little window into her brother’s life.

Then, as Harry turns one way to refill someone else’s glass, Gina turns the other, and finds herself looking directly at Paddy Norton. He’s not speaking now, but is listening to one of the barristers or equity-fund managers and staring down at the carpet. After a moment, he lifts his head and looks in Gina’s direction. Their eyes meet. Gina instinctively raises her eyebrows and gestures to him, pointing to the side. Surprised, Norton immediately moves, mumbling a word of excuse to no one in particular, and exits the circle. Gina moves around it and they meet head on.

‘Excuse me, Mr Norton,’ she says, extending a hand. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt, but my name is Gina. I’m one of Noel’s sisters.’

‘My
dear
,’ Norton says, shaking her hand vigorously, ‘my dear. Of course.
Gina
. How are you? I’m very sorry. You have my deepest sympathies.’

‘Thank you.’

‘How
are
you?’

People keep asking her this – how
are
you? – as if they really want to know, but it’s just a formula.

‘I’m fine.’ She pauses. ‘I suppose.’

‘Of course. It’s … it’s very hard on all of you.’

She nods. Norton is holding a glass of whiskey. As he speaks, he looks into it and swirls the whiskey around. Up close, he is quite portly, but his tailored charcoal grey suit does a lot to disguise this. He has chubby manicured hands and beads of sweat on his upper lip. His eyes are blue and very intense.

‘How well did you know my brother?’

Here she goes.

‘Not very well, I’m afraid. We liaised, of course, on the project.’

‘On Richmond Plaza?’

‘Yes. Which, incidentally, you know, will be a tremendous tribute to your brother when it’s finished.’

‘I’m sure it will, yes.’ She pauses. ‘But you didn’t know him socially.’

‘Not really, no.’ Norton takes a sip of whiskey from his glass.

‘Because, I was just wondering –’ she half turns here, vaguely indicating behind her, ‘you see, I was talking a minute ago to a Detective Superintendent … Merrigan I think it was, and he says that you had a drink with Noel on Monday night. Is that correct?’

She doesn’t mean this to sound quite so inquisitorial. But she’s
very
tired and it’s weird standing here. It’s almost surreal. She’s aware of the government minister a few feet away from her, and the rugby captain, and she’s just spotted – over Norton’s shoulder – the presenter of a popular new reality TV show.

‘Well, yes,’ Norton says. ‘There’s social, I suppose, and social. If a quick drink after work to go over some notes qualifies as social, then yes.’

What she really wants to ask him is the question she asked Terry Stack, only in reverse – because it seems to her, on reflection, that Stack
was
lying. But she has to build up to it.

‘I see,’ she says, ‘and what … notes were these?’

‘Just, you know … work-related stuff.’

‘Right.’ She nods. ‘When I saw Noel later he did seem fairly stressed all right.’

‘Stressed?’

‘Yes,
very
, in fact, I’d say. About work.’

She keeps glancing over his shoulder. How does she phrase this without putting him off the way she put Terry Stack off?

‘What did he say?’

‘What did he
say
?’ She looks at him now, directly. ‘Um, he …’ She goes on staring into his eyes, as she struggles to recall what Noel said, to summon up his words – even though she’s tired, even though time seems elastic … but eventually something comes to her. ‘He mentioned
the situation
… he said it was an unholy mess.’

Norton nods. ‘I see.’ He continues nodding, and Gina feels compelled to nod along with him. She also feels that the wine she’s been drinking has kicked in and that she needs to be a little more focused here.

‘I see,’ Norton says again.

Maybe she should start by asking him out straight if he knows who Terry Stack is. Take it from there.

‘Mr Norton, do –’

‘Look, Gina –’

Just then the government minister appears behind Norton and slaps him on the back.

‘I’ve got to be pushing on, Paddy,’ Bolger says. He smiles at Gina, and then, as if remembering he’s a politician, stretches out his hand. ‘Larry Bolger,’ he says. ‘Deepest sympathies. Your brother was a fine man.’

‘Thank you,’ Gina says, shaking his hand. ‘You knew him?’

‘Oh indeed, quite well. Noel beat me at poker on more than one occasion – humiliated me, you might say.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes. He was a quite serious card player, your brother.’

Gina wants to pursue this, but just then a tall woman in a navy suit appears and Bolger takes a couple of steps back. The woman says to Norton, ‘Sweetheart, we should be leaving, too.’ She reaches out to take the glass from his hand.

Norton, who looks a little pale now, lets her.

Gina sees her chance slipping away here. But Norton leans towards her and whispers, ‘We should talk about this again.’

She can smell the whiskey on his breath.

‘Yes,’ she says.

Someone with an empty tray is passing, and the woman in the navy suit puts Norton’s glass onto it.

‘Phone my office in Baggot Street,’ Norton says, handing her a business card, ‘and we can arrange to meet, or … if you could just come
there
?’

‘Yes,’ Gina says, nodding. ‘The funeral’s tomorrow, so – I don’t know – Monday?’

‘Yes, fine. Absolutely.’

‘Er …’

‘Ten o’clock?’

She nods again. ‘OK.’

The woman in the navy suit, Norton’s wife presumably, tugs at his sleeve and leads him away.

Larry Bolger moves away as well. The captain of the Ireland team and the two solicitors – or fund managers, or whatever they are – continue talking by the fire.

Gina turns and walks back across the room to the bay window. She glances at Norton’s business card and then slips it into her pocket. What just happened there? She’s not quite sure. He seemed eager to meet – which might mean something, or it might not. At least in the privacy of an office, and when she’s not so tired, she’ll have a better chance of assessing what Norton has to say – and she’ll ask him then, out straight, if he or anyone in his organisation has links with Terry Stack.

Once a couple of people have left, others start leaving as well, and the room quickly thins out.

After a while, Gina gathers her strength and goes over to have a few words with Jenny.

‘You drive.’

‘What?’

‘
You
drive. I don’t feel well.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Paddy. Give me the keys.’

Norton hands Miriam the keys and goes around to the passenger side. He gets in and immediately fumbles in his jacket pocket for his silver pillbox. As Miriam is putting on her seatbelt she looks at what he’s doing and says, ‘You’re not still taking
those
, are you?’

He pops two of the tablets into his mouth and turns to her. ‘What do
you
think?’

‘Oh, Paddy. On top of … what were you drinking in there, whiskey?’

‘Just drive, would you?
Jesus
.’

Norton swallows the pills. He can still see those eyes, staring at him accusingly. He’s assuming accusingly. The thing he
can’t
believe is that Noel Rafferty blabbered about this to his kid sister. But how much did he tell her? How much does she know? Maybe he should have stayed and had it out with her, but he felt weak standing there, like he was going to faint. He needed to get away and was glad when Bolger and Miriam appeared.

His mind is racing. He goes back over the conversation. First she wouldn’t look him in the eye and then she wouldn’t look away, taking ages over it, going for maximum effect –
the
situation … he mentioned the situation …

Jesus Christ.

And what was that about a detective superintendent knowing where he was on Monday night?

This is too much.

‘Are you feeling ill?’

‘What?’

Miriam is tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Are you feeling
ill
?’

‘Yes.’

‘Those pills won’t help, you know.’

‘Yes they will.’

They already are.

‘You’re not in
pain
, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Then how can they help? They’re meant to be pain
killers
, aren’t they?’

‘There are different kinds of pain, Miriam.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’

‘Yeah, well.’ He pauses, regroups. ‘Anyway, look who’s talking.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh come on, the sleeping pills? You’ve been taking those for as long as I’ve known you. So don’t talk to me about –’

‘That’s entirely different. They’re for a diagnosed, clinical condition.’

‘Hhnm.’

They drive in silence for a while along the Dual Carriageway.

‘Look,’ Miriam says, ‘do you want me to stop off at Dr Walsh’s?’

‘No. I’m fine. I’m just a bit stressed at the moment.’

‘But –’

‘All I need is some peace and quiet.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Oh for
fuck’s
sake, Miriam –’

There is a pause.

‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that. I don’t care how you feel, there’s no call for
language
.’

She reaches down and aggressively flicks on the CD player. Lush sounds fill the car.
Adagios to Die For, Volume 3
.

Norton sits back and exhales.

What is he going to do? Should he call Fitz? Should he wait? He has to do something. He’s too deep into this to let it unravel now. But what does Gina want? Is she going to blackmail him? Is she linking what she knows – or thinks she knows – with her brother’s death? Is she as much of a threat as
he
was?

Norton closes his eyes. He sees drizzle falling in a beer garden and a young man slumped over a wooden table. He sees an SUV skidding off the road and hurtling down a ravine. He sees a Merc and a Toyota, one concertinaed into a tree, the other merged with an old brick wall. Through a pervasive rain-drenched orange glow, he sees speckles of red – everywhere – and a continuous rotating blue light. He sees carnage, one body in the Merc, three in the Toyota, mangled, misshapen. He sees a little boy, his face streaked with blood, eyes vacant, but
walking
somehow – walking across shattered glass and strips of metal towards the flashing blue light and his own mangled, misshapen future. He sees a catalogue of panic, of fuck-ups, of near misses – and he’s tired of it, tired of having to piece together in his mind what he was never there to see, tired of having to confront these dark shards of imagining, these little glimpses into hell.

The Narolet has been building steadily, and now, like the music coming from the speakers – aching strings, sweet, swirling woodwinds – it reaches a crescendo, rises up in a tide of emotion and washes over him.

As it ebbs away, he opens his eyes – drained, spent. He glances to the right.

It takes him a moment to refocus.

He has always liked the way Miriam drives – fast, but very controlled. She really concentrates. She changes gears with the determination of a Formula One driver.

He’s such a fool.

‘I’m sorry, darling.’

They’re speeding down through the underpass.

‘When we get home, you should go to bed,’ Miriam says, after an appropriate pause. ‘Or at least,’ she goes on, more tenderly, ‘at a decent hour. For once.’

‘You’re right. I will.’

They remain silent for a while. The sound of a single violin, lonely and resonant, carries them forward.

Fifty yards ahead, the traffic light turns and they come gliding to a halt.

‘Who was that girl you were talking to?’

‘Gina Rafferty. One of the sisters.’

‘She seems young.’

‘Yeah. Big family apparently. She must be the youngest. She was quite upset, of course. She wanted to talk about her brother.’ He stares at the dashboard. ‘About what he did, and the building and stuff.’

‘Poor thing.’

‘I’ve asked her to come and see me at the office.’

The light turns green and they surge forward – as does Norton’s stomach. He detects a slight chemical shift, somewhere deep inside the dense, woolly fug of the Narolet.

‘You should take her to see it,’ Miriam says. ‘If she’s so interested.’

‘See what?’

‘The building. Give her a tour. Bring her up to the top. Show her the view.’

‘Hmm,’ Norton says, feeling a bit queasy now. ‘Maybe.’ He closes his eyes, and a rapid sequence of images flashes by, like frames of celluloid spooling to the end of a reel: the top floor of Richmond Plaza … howling winds, tarpaulin sheets flapping, sunlight flickering through the grid of interlocking steel girders. The scene is spectacular, with the city spread out below – Liberty Hall, the Central Bank, the spire of Christ Church Cathedral, and then, farther out, the parks and greenbelt areas, the housing estates that look like electronic circuit-boards, the gigantic shopping centres, the new ring roads and motorway extensions, languid and serpentine, laid out in every direction …

The new city.

His
city.

‘Yes.’ He nods, opening his eyes again and placing a firm, steadying hand on his stomach. ‘Maybe that’s what I’ll do.’