‘Just other delegates, at the conference, people he -’
‘Wait,’ Pina says. ‘Maybe. Say those names again.’
He repeats them.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘On a business card, perhaps. Clark Rundle. It’s a strange name. Funny.’ She turns to Francesca again and talks in Italian. When Francesca is ready she turns back to Jimmy.
‘Gianni’s briefcase, and some clothes. That’s all we have left of my father, from Ireland. In the briefcase he had some documents, and business cards. He always had so many.’ She nods back at Pina. ‘Maybe she saw that name on one of those.’ She pauses. ‘But who is this person?’
Jimmy ignores the question. ‘Do you still have the briefcase?’
‘Of course.’
He leans forward. ‘Can I see it?’
Francesca and Pina look at each other.
The briefcase is quite small, a black leather doctor’s bag. Pina handles it with great care. She carries it across the room and places it on the free end of the table and opens it. From the main compartment she takes out a sheaf of documents. At a glance, Jimmy sees that they are on UN-headed paper and are in Italian. From a smaller front compartment, she takes out a handful of business cards and puts them down in front of him.
He picks them up and starts flicking through them.
‘The police looked at this stuff,’ Francesca says, ‘but it was… two minutes. They didn’t care. They didn’t see any point.’
‘What about his cell phone?’ Jimmy asks, flicking through more cards. ‘His laptop?’
‘No. They were… the police said they must have been destroyed in the crash.’
Jimmy stops, holds up a card. ‘Clark Rundle.’
He studies it. Chairman and CEO of BRX Mining & Engineering Corporation.
He flips it over.
There is something handwritten on the back of it.
Jimmy tries to make out what it says, but can’t. The handwriting is illegible. Francesca takes the card from him and looks at it. She shakes her head.
‘Can you make it out?’
‘Yes,’ she says, staring at the card. ‘I think it’s a name.’ She pauses. ‘Dave… Conway?’
As the elevator descends, Larry Bolger presses his hands very hard against his chest to try and relieve the pain.
It doesn’t work.
He’s in shock.
Fuck.
Did…?
Where is he again? London. Why London? Oh yeah, that inter… international regulatory… something…
But -
In his stomach now too, there’s an intense… sensation. He looks up… the numbers…
Falling, sinking… into…
2008.
The top job, at last, seal of office, seal of approval, two fingers to all his critics down through the years, nothing like it.
Falling, sinking.
1999.
First time in cabinet, though not ready for it, not ready at all, no, drowning in a sea of whiskey and self-pity, and what’s-her-name, Avril Byrne.
Falling.
1983.
How many was it… over six thousand first-preference votes, elected on the first count, hoisted up in the air, to deafening cheers… but he was only three months back from Boston at that point, still in a tailspin over Frank, and still clutching at the straws of what he’d been forced to leave behind, that other life, with all its golden possibilities, unfulfilled now, and unfulfillable… dimming, dimmed, his lost trajectory…
Falling…
1968.
Brother Cornelius, looming in a dank, musty corridor, chalk dust on his soutane and a leather strap hiding in his pocket, waiting to be whipped out, like a dark, brooding, permanent erection…
Sinking…
1964.
At a match in Croke Park with Frank and the old man, but feeling left out, excluded, unable to join in any of the conversation, and not tall enough either to see a fucking thing, first time he properly remembers that sensation, though not the last…
His stomach, plummeting…
But then it stops.
And the door slides open. He staggers forward, out into the lobby, hands still pressing at his chest, holy Jesus, the pain… and the people, pointing, standing aside and murmuring… their plummy voices, I say, look, look…
1957.
Dadda, mamma… brudder…
Falling.
1954.
D.O.B.
When Dave Conway pulls into the driveway and sees that Ruth’s car is there he leans forward and rests his head on the steering wheel.
Damn.
He managed to avoid Martin Boyle after the meeting by going down the stairs and slipping out a side exit of the building, but given the choice now – an hour or two with his lawyer or the next ten minutes with his wife – he’d happily head back into the arms of his lawyer.
Ruth knew the meeting with the Black Vine people was important, but she didn’t know it was critical. Now Conway is going to have to explain to her both that it was critical and that he blew it.
And that consequently…
He doesn’t know.
He straightens up. He gets out of the car.
Ruth isn’t stupid, she’s just never paid that much attention to her husband’s financial affairs. When they met, he was already running several successful businesses and she never felt the need to interrogate him about it. So she’ll understand.
But the thing is, she won’t forgive him.
Ruth always took it on trust that Conway knew what he was doing. The big deal he negotiated a few years back with BRX confirmed this for her. Not only that, but it also set the bar for her expectations, and set it pretty high. Because as far as Ruth was concerned – is concerned – there’s no debate about the direction this thing is going in. It’s only a matter of time, she believes, recession notwithstanding, before Conway pulls off another spectacular and they move up to the next level.
However, with this Black Vine catastrophe – self-inflicted or not, it doesn’t really matter – they’ve pretty much lost everything.
How does he break that to her?
And how does he break it to her that it might even be a lot worse? That the BRX deal itself is in danger of coming apart, of unspooling, and all the way back to that long, wet, complicated summer of three years ago…
As he approaches the front door, rummaging for his key, he wonders how he’s going to be able to face this now, with the kids pulling at him and screaming for attention.
What he’d like to do is turn around and get back in the car, but where would he go? He has to face Ruth sooner or later.
He puts his key in the door.
Where does he even begin? Does he explain to her that while he might be responsible for the financial mess they’re in, his old friend and political patron, Larry Bolger, is now a direct threat to their security, to everything they hold dear? That if the man can’t keep his mouth shut, Conway and others might actually end up going to prison?
When he gets inside the door he hears sounds coming from the playroom to the right. They’re watching something on TV. He doesn’t go in. He walks straight on towards the kitchen at the back.
Ruth is sitting at the counter, alone, gazing up at the small wall-mounted TV over the fridge.
‘Hi,’ he says.
She turns to look at him. He is alarmed at the expression on her face. Does she know already? Has Martin Boyle phoned?
‘What’s wrong?’ No response. ‘Ruth?’
She shakes her head slightly. ‘Haven’t you heard?’
‘What?’ Panic now. ‘No. Heard what?’
She points up at the TV screen. It’s tuned to Sky News. At first he doesn’t understand, it’s just a newscaster, saying something about a Lib Dem by-election candidate…
But then he sees it.
The crawl.
Running across the bottom of the screen.
BREAKING NEWS: FORMER IRISH PRIME MINISTER LARRY BOLGER DIES SUDDENLY IN LONDON… BREAKING NEWS: FORMER IRISH PRIME MINISTER LARRY BOLGER DIES SUDDENLY…