It makes no sense.
Unless something was wrong.
Gina feels her insides turning.
This is what Noel was talking about that night. He said it to her: You don’t want to know, believe me… it’s engineering stuff, an unholy bloody mess…
She takes a deep breath and clicks on the first of the emails. It’s from Noel, and was sent on Wednesday, 24 October.
Hi Dermot, Got your message. I’m still looking at your report. I’ll see you when I get back to the office later in the p.m. Please keep this to yourself until we’ve had a chance to discuss fully. N.
Gina immediately clicks on the second message. It’s from Dermot. Two days later.
Noel, Given the nature of the situation, shouldn’t we be doing something, showing this to someone? I’m very anxious. Please let me know what’s happening. Dermot.
The next one is a reply from Noel. Same day.
Dermot, I’ve already shown it to someone – just this morning – so please, bear with me. We can’t afford to let this get out there – not unless we’re 100% certain of our facts. I’ll talk to you later. N.
But let what get out, exactly? It’s clear that Gina has hit paydirt here, and she’s excited, but she’s also frustrated, because she isn’t sure what any of it means.
She clicks on the fourth email. It’s from Dermot. It was sent after the weekend, on the Monday – that Monday.
Noel, I didn’t see you in the office on Friday, or this morning. I’ve left several messages on your voicemail. I can’t help but question the wisdom of – if not yet the motive for - this delay in taking action. And surely the longer we hold off, the harder it’s going to be to explain? Dermot.
Noel’s last email, sent that afternoon, is very different in tone from his others. It is, in effect, a memo.
Dermot, Please be advised that I have scheduled a conference call for 10 a.m. tomorrow morning with Yves Baladur in Paris. The purpose of this call is to make an official presentation of the findings in your report. I have scheduled a further conference call for 2 p.m. with Daniel Lazar. N.R.
Yves Baladur? Gina isn’t sure, but she thinks this is the head of BCM. There’s no doubt in her mind, however, about the second name, Daniel Lazar – he’s the architect who designed Richmond Plaza. She closes her eyes. So. Dermot Flynn gave this report he’d compiled to Noel, and expected him to pass it on, to pass it up. To head office in Paris. To the architect. To someone. Noel dragged his feet on it for a while, made excuses, but then he capitulated.
And that’s what sealed his fate.
Gina opens her eyes.
Because there was someone who didn’t want the report to be seen – the same person, she assumes, who Noel said in his email he’d already shown it to. And it’s pretty obvious to her now who that is. Even though there’s still nothing concrete she can point to, nothing she can adduce, no evidence, no demonstrable link…
But then she looks at the screen again, at that final email, and she sees it.
She didn’t spot this the first time, but she’s definitely seeing it now.
It’s the last field in the message header, right there along with the others, with the sender and the receiver, with the date and the subject line…
Digital, ineradicable.
Cc: Paddy Norton.
He is parked along the quays, not far from her building, close enough to see her coming out or going in.
He looks at his watch.
Maybe he should try phoning her again. But what would he say this time if she answered? He doesn’t want to scare her off.
Outside, it’s cold and blustery, and there’s hardly anyone about, the odd pedestrian maybe, some traffic, but not much. An articulated truck rumbles by.
He switches to another station. There’ll be a news bulletin on in five minutes.
He rubs his chest.
Ten minutes ago, he got out of the car and walked up to the entrance of her building. He found her name and rang the bell. He waited, but there was no answer.
He came back to the car.
He looks around again now. Then he looks at his watch again.
Gina’s brother was that dangerous animal, a man of principle – so Norton wonders what she is like. He knows she’s stubborn and determined, but is she smart? Will she listen to reason?
On reflection, he doesn’t think she will. He’s been turning this over in his mind all day. He knows from what Fitz said that her software company is in financial difficulty and it occurred to him that he could offer to bail her out – he could provide some capital investment, or just give her the money he’d promised to pay Fitz.
But somehow he doesn’t see it.
What if he talks to her tonight and makes her an offer, and she accepts, but then in the morning she changes her mind?
There’s too much happening right now to justify that level of risk.
The news bulletin comes on. The reporting – live from Leinster House – is breathless, almost hysterical. He listens, but any sense of satisfaction or achievement he might have expected to feel is muted. In ‘other news’, it is reported that Gardaí have established the identity of the last victim of last night’s gangland shootout. He is thirty-year-old Dubliner Mark Griffin. Gardaí, however, don’t believe that the local businessman, who is still in a critical condition, has any criminal connections, and they are operating on the assumption that he may simply – and tragically – have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Norton groans.
How is Gina Rafferty going to react when she hears that?
He looks around, checks out the street, ahead and behind. The place is deserted. It would be so perfect if she were to turn up now.
He reaches across to the passenger seat, to where he impatiently tossed the gun when he got back into the car a few minutes earlier.
He picks it up, turns it, studies it, rests it in his lap.
Where the bloody hell is she?
From O’Connell Bridge the taxi makes a right onto Eden Quay.
Gina’s main reason for going back to her apartment is that she needs a change of clothes. Sophie tried to convince her to stay another night at her place, but it seems intolerable to Gina – as well as absurd – that she should be denied access to her own wardrobe.
It’s clear from the anonymous call she received that someone is keeping tabs on her. They have her mobile number, and no doubt have her home address as well. But Gina refuses to be intimidated.
She has Fitz’s gun in her pocket.
The taxi passes under Butt Bridge and along by the Custom House. A moment later, they stop at a traffic light, and the driver says, ‘That’s a blustery one.’
‘Yeah,’ Gina responds, distracted, and then adds, ‘awful night.’
‘Not a bad one for your man Larry Bolger, though.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You didn’t hear? It was on the news there. He’s going to be taking over. A palace coup, they’re calling it.’
Gina is stunned. This was expected, but somehow it doesn’t feel that way. Pressing back against the leather of the car seat, she senses new, subterranean levels of activity in all of this, like little tremors, previously undetected, but now growing stronger.
She puts her hand into her jacket pocket. ‘Listen,’ she says, leaning forward, ‘there wasn’t anything else on the news, was there, about that thing in Cherryvale?’