Alan Glynn - Winterland

He clicks the briefcase open.

The man who came up to him in the street this afternoon was pale and thin. He wore a denim jacket and had small, beady eyes.

‘Dermot Flynn?’ he said.

Flynn nodded. The man had an air of menace about him, but when he spoke he was disconcertingly soft-spoken and polite. He smiled as he handed over the thick brown envelope.

‘This is for you, boss,’ he said. ‘A little something.’

Flynn took the envelope in one hand and fumbled with it as he used his other hand to put the can of Diet Coke into his jacket pocket.

‘What’s this?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘Who are you ?’

‘I’m a messenger,’ the man said. ‘And here’s the message. That report, yeah? You know the one I mean. Destroy it. Delete any files you have relating to it. Never talk about it again, to anyone, ever.’

Flynn stared at him in disbelief.

The man nodded at the envelope. ‘There’s two things in there,’ he went on. ‘One to show you we can be generous, and the other to show you we can be seriously, and I mean seriously , unpleasant.’ He smiled again, but this time it was thinner, less convincing. ‘So. That’s all clear then, yeah?’

Flynn swallowed. He was still in shock, still puzzled. He said nothing.

‘That’s all clear then I said, yeah boss?’

‘Look, I don’t know -’

The man lunged forward. ‘No fuckin’ “looks”,’ he said, ‘or “I don’t knows”, all right?’

Flynn recoiled at this sudden change in tack.

Had the guy actually been about to headbutt him?

‘Yeah, it’s clear,’ he said, holding up his free hand, ‘it’s clear.’ He wanted to add ‘take it easy’ or ‘back off, pal’, or something even stronger – but nothing came out.

‘The envelope,’ the man said. ‘It’s all there in the bleedin’ envelope.’

He then turned and walked away.

Up in his office, at his desk, Flynn opened the envelope and looked inside.

His heart has been pounding ever since.

He lifts the briefcase open now and takes another look. Earlier, in his office, he emptied the contents of the envelope into the briefcase – so there it all is, right in front of him: the sheet of paper with the two Polaroids taped to it and the solid bricks of cash.

Given how thick each brick is, and the fact that they’re in fifties – he reckons there’s probably about a hundred thousand euro here.

But of course that’s not why his heart is pounding.

He lifts up the sheet of paper with the Polaroids on it.

The top one shows Orla. She’s coming out the main gate of St Teresa’s. She’s in her green and grey uniform and is carrying her school bag. There are other kids in the background. The second photo shows Niamh, also in uniform, but she’s alone, walking – skipping – along what looks like Ashleaf Avenue.

Flynn takes another deep breath and lets it out slowly.

He stares at what is written on the white border below the photographs. It is a spidery scrawl, done in black ink – the same three letters on each.

R.I.P.

After twenty minutes on the treadmill, flicking between Sky News and CNN, Mark Griffin decides he’s had enough and heads into the bathroom. He takes a shower and shaves. Back in the bedroom he chooses the charcoal grey suit, the pale blue tie and a white shirt. He gets dressed, occasionally glancing over at the bed. He goes down to the kitchen. He puts on coffee, stands at the breakfast bar and slices a grapefruit into neat segments. To the right, his laptop is open. He looks through his schedule for the day.

Mark runs a small company, Tesoro, that imports handmade stone and ceramic tiles from Italy. It started out as an excuse to make regular trips to places such as Brescia, Gubbio and Pesaro, but it soon took on a life of its own. As recession in Ireland gave way to boom, so linoleum and thick shag gave way to travertine and terra-cotta, and it wasn’t long before Mark found himself supplying high-end product to the high end of the residential property market.

After secondary school, and mainly at the insistence of his uncle Des, Mark did a business degree at Trinity College. The prospect of becoming an executive or an entrepreneur was always something he’d viewed with dread, but running Tesoro has never really felt like that, like a business. How could it? He travels to Italy and watches dedicated artisans at work. He deals in the aesthetics of tone, in the endless harmonies of colour, form and design.

Behind him, he hears Susan coming into the kitchen.

‘Morning,’ she says, in her sleepy drawl.

‘Hi. There’ll be coffee in a minute.’

He doesn’t turn around. After a moment, Susan appears behind the breakfast bar. As she passes on her way to the fridge, she swipes a segment of his grapefruit, upsetting the formation he’s made on the plate. Then she goes to the fridge and stands there, holding the door open, staring into the light, humming.

He looks at her and smiles. She’s wearing one of his shirts.

Reaching into the fridge, Susan disappears from view.

Mark pops a segment of grapefruit into his mouth. He rearranges what’s left on the plate and turns his attention back to the laptop. He has to swing by the showrooms in Ranelagh to pick something up, and after that he’s going out to the warehouse, where he’ll be for the rest of the morning. Then at two o’clock he’s got an appointment in town. He’s chasing a tiling contract from a builder who’s just put up a new five-star hotel with 120 bathrooms in it. Single property refurbishments are suddenly a lot harder to come by these days, and a hotel contract, if he can get it, makes good business sense.

He looks over as Susan emerges from the fridge carrying a slab of cheese, some sliced ham and a tub of olives.

As she lays the stuff down on the breakfast bar, she makes a face at him, half apologetically, and says, ‘Starving.’

Mark looks at his watch. He clicks his tongue. ‘I have to go in a few minutes,’ he says, ‘but I’ll leave you a key and the alarm code.’

Susan looks a little surprised. ‘A key? Wow. But… I see you’ve already chosen the curtains.’

Mark snorts at this. He met Susan on a skiing trip last winter, and a few nights ago they bumped into each other again in town.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I went ahead. I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘No, go on. Jesus. They’re fab.’

She tears a slice of ham in two and puts one of the pieces into her mouth.

‘How do you like your coffee?’ he says.

‘Strong. Black.’

Ten minutes later, getting into his car, Mark glances over his shoulder at the house. It’s a weird, unfamiliar feeling to be leaving someone behind like this, inside the house.

He pulls out onto Glanmore Road.

It isn’t a bad feeling.

He reaches down, flicks on the radio and tunes it to Morning Ireland .

Actually, it’s a nice feeling.

But Mark doesn’t want to dwell on that, because feelings like these – he knows from experience – tend not to last.

Gina opens her eyes.

She rolls over in the bed, onto her back, and stares up at the ceiling.

Something is bothering her. It’s not just her nephew, that’s a given. It’s something else, a separate strain of anxiety.

She looks at the clock on her bedside table: 8.45 a.m.

She got home at around three. Yvonne and Michelle had taken charge of things, so there wasn’t much point in her sticking around any longer. Besides, she had to get home and change.

She called a taxi at 2.30.

Her mind freezes for a second. Then she remembers what’s bothering her.