Winterland (47 page)

He passes the RTÉ studios at Montrose.

Those bastards in there have been running the same identifying clip of him in all their news bulletins since Friday. It shows him, some months back, entering the Fairleigh Clinic, taking the front steps two at a time – but over and over again. The repetition of the clip has become something of a joke, with one smart-arse on the radio today even remarking that after so much exercise Mr Norton should probably expect to lose at least a
little
weight.

It’s humiliating.

The box and torn packaging on the passenger seat beside him is what’s left of the Nalprox. He’s been popping them indiscriminately all weekend and is going to have to arrange a repeat scrip soon.

He flicks on the CD player.

Jarring, dissonant brass and a demented string section. He goes on to the next track. It’s more soothing, some clarinet thing, but after a minute he flicks it off anyway.

He keeps replaying Friday in his head.

He just didn’t see it coming, not like that.

He didn’t have her pegged for such a scheming, devious
bitch
.

Stopped at lights, he reaches over and opens the glove compartment. If he’d had this bloody gun with him on Friday, he would have used it and dealt with the consequences later.

But he didn’t. It was sitting here in his car, gathering dust.

He’d still like to use it, though – and will, if he ever gets the chance.

If she ever comes near him again …

A few minutes later, as he’s pulling into the gravel driveway of his house, he has a momentary lapse of concentration – or maybe even of consciousness – and swerves a bit to the left. He scrapes the side of his car against the iron gate and then mounts a rock-bordered flower bed, crushing a row of crocuses. It takes him a few awkward moments to manoeuvre the car off the flower bed and park it properly.

When he gets out of the car, he stands for a moment on the gravel and takes a couple of deep breaths. He looks up at the sky, which is grey and overcast. Then he inspects the side of the car, swears under his breath, shakes his head. Turning to go into the house, he notices two men standing at the gates.

One of them has a camera.

‘
Fuck off!
’ he shouts, and raises his fist in the air.

He hadn’t noticed them on the way in.

Miriam is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. For the last three days she has been struggling to maintain some kind of equilibrium. But conflicting forces have made this very difficult. One side of her wants to be loyal and supportive to her husband. The other side, it appears, wants to insult and belittle him.

The best she can manage is a sort of tense neutrality – severe, clipped.

No make-up.

‘Where have you
been
?’

‘Out. Driving around.’

‘I see. Why didn’t you answer your phone?’

‘I didn’t feel like it.’

‘Did you check your messages?’

‘Oh
Jesus
, Miriam.’

He walks across the hall and into the main reception room. He goes over to the drinks cabinet and pours himself a large Bushmills.

Then he stands, looking at nothing in particular, and sips the drink. He has his back to the door and doesn’t know if Miriam is there or not.

But she doesn’t have to speak. He can hear her voice in his head.

Whiskey? For goodness’ sake, Paddy, it’s four o’clock in the
afternoon
.

He turns around.

She isn’t there.

Keeping a close eye on the door, Mark tries to piece everything together in his mind – but the pieces keep shifting position and changing shape. At the end there, in the warehouse, something happened, it’s just that he doesn’t know
what
exactly. Because he wasn’t in any condition to take it in. What he does know is that Gina was supposed to show up, but someone else was there, someone who knew
he’d
be there … and then, after a while, seemingly, all hell broke loose …

But what happened to Gina? Where is she now?
How
is she now?

One way or another he’s going to have to find out. He’s going to have to ask the nurse if she knows anything, or if she can arrange to buy him a phone, or get him a newspaper – or, at the very least, turn on the TV.

Assuming he can trust her, that is. Assuming he can trust anyone.

Because there was that guy at the warehouse, and the guy earlier, the one in the car park, the one who shot him.

So presumably there’ll be others.

Mark’s stomach turns.

Not to mention the police. The police will definitely want to interview him. But given that he almost tried to
kill
a government minister, well … the police are probably the very
last
people he should trust.

Then, as if on cue, the door of the room flies open and a tall man in a blue suit barges in.

Mark flinches and turns his head to the side, expecting the worst.

‘So, Mr Griffin,’ the man says in a booming voice, ‘Nurse here tells me that you’ve decided to rejoin us.’

Mark looks up.

The man in the suit is about fifty and has the air of an ex-rugby player.

The nurse is standing behind him.

‘Henry Dillon,’ the man says, producing a penlight from his breast pocket and clicking it. ‘Shall we?’

He then proceeds to examine Mark thoroughly, prodding, probing, moving him on his side, testing his reflexes.

He makes adjustments to the various IV drips.

Mark remains anxious, but at the same time – for the moment, at least – he’s relieved.

‘So,’ the consultant says, folding his arms, ‘that bullet? Looks like it had your name on it all right.’

Mark’s eyes widen. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, just that you may have it for life. We can’t take it out. Well we
could
, but it wouldn’t be worth the extra damage the operation would cause. But you’ll be fine. It’s more common than you might think. People leave hospitals with foreign objects in their bodies all the time.’

Mark stares at him, unsure what to think. Foreign objects? Is this some kind of code? Is he being threatened here? Or
warned
?

He remains silent.

‘Well, you seem to be making a remarkable recovery,’ the consultant says, heading for the door. ‘We’ll probably move you to a step-down unit later today or tomorrow. By the way, there are some people who want to have a word with you and I’m going to go ahead and authorise them to pop in for a chat. Is that OK?’

Mark swallows.

Some people? A chat?

‘Yeah, but … what people?’

Halfway out the door, the consultant glances back.

‘Why, the police, of course.’

As Gina walks down Grafton Street, around College Green and onto the quays, she hears Merrigan’s words in her head.

I can see this becoming an obsession. I can see it destroying
your
life
.

She doesn’t think he’s wrong.

She knows she’s under the influence of a compulsion that she doesn’t understand or currently have the energy to resist. She thought after Friday that it would dissipate, that she could settle for how things had turned out, for a lesser form of justice.

But it only intensified.

And hearing last night that Norton was refusing to press charges actually made it worse. Something crystallised for her in that moment. It was the realisation that
she
needs to press some form of charges against
him
.

But now, in the cold light of day, that seems like a remote possibility. Because how does she pursue this? How does she even approach him after everything that has happened?

Walking along by the river, Gina looks up at Richmond Plaza and finds it hard to believe that she’s not still up there, not still holding a loaded gun in her hand, not still pointing it at Norton’s head, because compared to the intensity of
that
experience, everything else seems unreal to her, pallid and insubstantial.

But at the same time she can’t give up.

That’s not an option.

So when she arrives at her building, gets upstairs and through the door of her apartment, she walks straight over to the desk in the corner. She takes off her jacket. She puts down keys, wallet, phone.

And stares for a while, first at the wall, then at the keyboard of her computer.

She could call him on his mobile.

But that might be too direct. What if he doesn’t answer? What if he decides to alert the guards?

She needs something that will give him pause, something to provoke him.

Sitting down, Gina pictures Mark Griffin lying in an ICU ward, on life support, and it occurs to her again that
his
involvement in all of this is something she has never challenged Norton on. It’s actually the one aspect of the whole business that doesn’t fit, that she doesn’t understand.

So with the queasy self-awareness of a compulsive gambler about to place one more – one
last
– bet, she taps the centre of the keyboard and activates her computer. She opens the file. She turns on the printer.

She looks at her watch: 4.25.

I can see this becoming an obsession. I can see it destroying
your
life
.

Then she picks up her mobile and calls a local courier service.

When Mark mentions Gina Rafferty’s name to the nurse, she recognises it immediately and is able to inform him that not only is Gina all right, she’s been in the news and has made quite a splash …

Mark finds this alarming, and then confusing. It just doesn’t make sense.

Richmond Plaza? Paddy Norton?

He is relieved to find out that Gina is OK, that she’s
alive
, but he doesn’t get what she is up to, he doesn’t –

Which is when the nurse suggests that she might try and get a hold of one of yesterday’s newspapers for him, an
Independent
or a
Tribune
. There was plenty of coverage in all the Sunday papers, and at least one of the patients in the next ward along is sure to have something left over.

She’ll go and have a scout around when she gets a chance.

But maybe in the meantime Mark might like to watch some TV?

‘There’ll be news on in a while.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Fine. Thanks.’

The nurse switches on the TV and hands him the remote.

‘Er, Nurse,’ Mark then says, ‘look, there isn’t any chance I could get my hands on a mobile phone, is there?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. You could borrow mine if you really need to make a call … or –’

‘Do they sell them downstairs, at reception? Is there a shop? Could –’

She nods. ‘Yes, don’t worry about it. I’ll arrange something.’

After she leaves, Mark stares up at the screen for a while but is unable to focus on anything.

He keeps glancing over at the door.

When are the police going to show up? And what are they going to ask him when they do?

He exhales loudly.

But let’s face it, are they really going to bother asking him anything at all? Because in whose interest is it to hear what he has to say?

It’s in
his
interest. And in no one else’s.

Mark may no longer be a threat to anyone physically, but he
is
still a threat, just of a very different kind. The mere fact that he’s alive and has a story to tell not only threatens Bolger’s advancement in the party, it may also seriously threaten the reputation and stability of the great party itself.

Mark feels as though he’s emerging from a dense fog, which he puts down to a combination of the adjustments the doctor made to his IV drips and what he imagines to be a natural surge in his own adrenaline levels. But the result is that he’s now extremely agitated and doesn’t know how much longer he’s going to be able to just
lie
here like this.

Doing nothing, waiting for …

For what?

He looks at the door, and then up at the TV again.

The news is coming on.

The programme’s signature tune rises portentously, and fades.

He tries to focus.

The doorbell rings.

Norton doesn’t move.

He has no intention of answering it, given that it’s probably a journalist out at the front gate. They’ve tried this on a few times over the past three days.

He’s been drinking coffee and his heart is racing. The whiskey earlier made him sick. For the first half an hour he felt fine, even a little exhilarated – which was probably due to the mix with the pills – but then he got nauseous and threw up. The switch to coffee was fine at first, too – but now he feels jittery and anxious and has a tightness in his chest.

He should eat something, but … maybe later.

The TV is on. He’s not focused on it, though.

Then the phone rings. In the hall.

He has no intention of answering that either.

It can ring out. Or Miriam upstairs will answer it. There were several calls earlier, which he’s assuming she did answer. But if so, she never passed on any messages. And some of the calls had to have been for him, because he hasn’t been getting back to people. Voicemail, text messages, emails – he’s been ignoring them all.

He’s not in the mood.

A few moments later, he hears Miriam coming down the stairs.

He tenses, not in the mood for her either.

She opens the hall door. He hears her stepping out onto the gravel.

He waits, listens.

What is she doing?

She’d better not be going out to talk to a journalist, because that’d be really stupid. Though on reflection it’s not something he can see Miriam doing. With her it’d almost be like breaking a religious taboo.

She comes back in and slams the front door shut. Then she comes into the living room. Without saying anything, she walks over to the sofa where Norton is sitting. She has a large brown envelope in her hand. She drops it in his lap.