McAvoy kicks the dirt and snow off his boots, hoofing the brick frontage of the Comfort Inn with sufficient force to risk an avalanche. He pulls open the glass double doors and nods a weary hello to the smiling Asian twenty-something who mans the front desk. His name tag says he is called Tiz and McAvoy is too tired to ask what peculiar name he has shortened in order to make his name more amenable to tourists.
“Back so soon?” asks Tiz. He has a paperback splayed open, pages down, on the desk in front of him. The cover shows lurid red text on a black background, and three monochrome faces stare up menacingly.
“Mafia’s greatest hits,” explains Tiz, following McAvoy’s gaze. “Bit of a break from college work.”
“You’re a student?” asks McAvoy, making an effort at conversation. Tiz was only too happy to give McAvoy the same room that Brishen Ayres and Shay Helden had been staying in before they were shot and left for dead. McAvoy also asked to see their luggage but that had long since been taken to the Seventh. It proved nothing more illuminating than the fact that the duo traveled light.
“Macroeconomics,” says Tiz brightly. “I wanted to do photography but there’s not much money in that.”
“You don’t have to decide what you want to be at your age,” says McAvoy, trying to dispense something vaguely useful to the younger man. “Do what matters to you.”
“Money matters to all of us,” says Tiz solemnly, in a way that suggests he thinks he’s said something profound. “Everything okay with your room?”
“Great, thanks,” says McAvoy, though in truth he barely took in its features while dumping his bag an hour ago. “Nice big bed.”
Tiz coughs and glances down, and McAvoy suddenly suffers the horrifying thought that Tiz might think he has been propositioned. “My wife would love it here,” he adds, coloring. “She’s never been here before. Can’t wait to bring her. My kids, too.”
“Well, you be sure to give them my best wishes,” says Tiz in the guileless, good-natured way McAvoy finds so endearing. “Have yourself a great night.”
McAvoy splutters out a thank-you, then decides he will spend the rest of the night worrying about it if he doesn’t salvage something from the conversation. Looking around for inspiration, his gaze falls back on the young man’s book.
“You’re really into all that?” he asks, trying to sound encouraging. “I try and turn away from this stuff, if I can. I’ve seen films and read books, of course, but when it’s real it just makes me shudder.”
“This is macroeconomics at work,” Tiz says, brandishing the book. “You want to see how to stay ahead in a changing marketplace, ask the Mob. They’re lessons in longevity and diversification. I was going to write a thesis on it until Dad told me not to.”
McAvoy looks confused and Tiz leans on the desk, warming to his subject.
“They adapt,” he says, as if explaining to a small child. “You know about the history of the Mob? How this obscure code from a little island kicked into the sea off Italy ended up as one of the biggest economic forces in America? Man, there’s more to the Mafia than racketeering and drugs and killing people off. Their structure is the basic model used by some of the most successful businesses in America.”
McAvoy continues to look blank and Tiz throws up his hands, exasperated. Looking around him, he finds a copy of a free newspaper on top of some glossy magazines beneath his desk.
“Take the Pugliesca family,” he says, pointing at a small article in the bottom right-hand corner. “Boss of the family will be doing time until he’s about five hundred years old but the company, the family, is more profitable than ever before. They hide their profits, see. No different than any big company that wants to get away with paying half a cent in tax on billion-dollar reserves. This case here,” he says, pointing again at the paper, “it’s a failed RICO attempt on the acting head. They’re trying to get old Paulie’s assets but on paper he’s worth less than the cost of a slice of apple pie. Every company they try and link to him turns out to be a dead end, or registered to somebody who died and left his assets to some benevolent fund that nobody seems able to take credit for. They’re technical wizards and their accountants and lawyers would be enjoying corner offices and six-figure salaries at blue-chip companies if they weren’t already making twice that working for the Mob.”
McAvoy raises his eyebrows. He isn’t sure what response is required but he gives an encouraging smile. “Oh,” he says. “That’s better than killing people, I suppose.”
“They do that, too,” says Tiz, beaming. “You want to hear about Sally Boy in ’eighty-one? They found half of one leg and the rest hit a parked car two streets away . . .”
McAvoy nods a polite good night and hurries his way down the short corridor to the elevator. His room is on the seventh floor and moments later, he is pushing open the white door to a room not much longer and taller than he is. A mirrored wardrobe and a dressing table take up one wall, and the rest of the room is covered by the bulk of the king-size bed. The rectangular window offers him a view of only his own reflection, but when he presses his forehead to the cool glass, he can see the backs of towering buildings and the roofs of apartment blocks, all covered with the same hard snow. On the top of one building, he can make out the shape of a boat, partly covered in a tarpaulin, which sags under the weight of the snow. McAvoy starts to wonder how its owner intends to get it to the water, and then decides that in this hipster area, the owner may well be preparing for environmental disaster and the sudden swelling of the East River.
A small bathroom containing toilet, sink, and shower completes the tour of the room. McAvoy wonders if Brishen and Shay experienced the same mild sense of disappointment upon opening the door. He wonders, too, whether they expected the room to come with twin beds rather than one large one that they’d have to share. He files the question away for later.
Sighing, he sits down on the bed and starts unpicking the damp laces of his boots. He has one boot on and the other off when a wave of homesickness and bewilderment seems to rise out of the floor and soak him to the bone. He feels as though everything he knows and loves is a million miles away. He lies back on the bed and fumbles in his coat for his phone. It’s a little before midnight. It may only be five a.m. back home, but McAvoy knows from painful experience that Roisin and the children will be wide awake and desperate for some words from Daddy. He wishes he had something to tell them. He wants to hear their voices so badly that it feels like a physical pain. He tries to picture them, but the images that flood his mind threaten to make his eyes spill over and he screws up his face, wishing to God he could reach out and stroke Roisin’s soft, dark skin. He is here for her. Here for his children. Here because the Heldens turned up at Roisin’s little sister’s confirmation and threatened Papa Teague with all the torments of hell in payment for Valentine’s crimes.
Lying there on the warm, soft sheets, McAvoy lets his mind drift. Was it only a few days ago? He feels as though he has been carrying this pain inside of him for an age. But there is no mistake. He got the call on Saturday. Shay Helden had already been dead a week. Roisin had spent the previous couple of days in Galway, unaware of what was brewing across the Atlantic or how much trouble her little brother was in. The children had gone with her. Fin’s school had been understanding about the fact that he had gone to Ireland in term time, once Roisin had explained that there was a family bereavement. McAvoy had bitten back his objections when Roisin had put her hand on his cheek and told him to shush, and that all the boy would miss would be some coloring in and another fecking lesson about the Tudors. McAvoy had found himself silently hoping that nobody at the school ever got round to counting up how many grandmothers Finlay had lost during his school career.
McAvoy was decorating the living room in preparation for their return when the call came. He’d been invited to Sinéad’s confirmation but Roisin had spared him the agony of coming up with an excuse when she said that she’d rather he got on with the decorating. She’d known that the presence of a policeman at an occasion for travelers would be awkward for all concerned. She had only recently started mending bridges with her family, who had all but disowned her nine years ago. Her crime was marrying the Scottish detective who loved her to his bones.
Roisin is a strong enough person not to give a damn about other people’s opinions, but she had been unable to disguise her delight at being invited to Sinéad’s big day. Roisin is the second oldest of eight children, and Sinéad had been only three years old when she left the family home. But family is family, and the event had been important to both factions. McAvoy had been pleased that Roisin was happy, though in truth, he had felt some disquiet at the idea of her taking the children across to what he knew would be a raucous affair near the family’s home turf in Galway. Roisin had settled his nerves. She’d told him that it was only for a couple of days, and that all she wanted was to show off her children. She promised that anybody who tried to get Fin drunk would feel the back of her hand, and McAvoy had no doubts she was sincere when she said it. He gave her his credit card and said she should buy the children new outfits for the occasion. She came back with a three-piece tweed suit and matching flat cap for seven-year-old Fin, and an ocean of sapphire taffeta and silk for two-year-old Lilah. It was going to be a Big Fat Gypsy Confirmation, and Roisin was keen to show she that had not lost sight of her roots. She may live with a policeman in a battered house by the sea, but she has never been ashamed of her origins and her family.
McAvoy had been holding up a strip of gaudily patterned wallpaper when his mobile rang. He was halfway up a ladder, bare-chested and paint-spattered, sticky with wallpaper paste and with half a Mars bar sticking out of his mouth, as if he were smoking a cigar. He answered the phone to Roisin’s tears. Ten minutes later, he was on the road to Trish Pharaoh’s house, his knuckles white around the steering wheel as he crossed the Humber Bridge, a soft, sideways rain blowing in from the east and jeweling the glass of the cursedly slow minivan he had bought for its safety record.
He called his boss Pharaoh en route. Chewed on his bleeding cheek as he spat out the details Roisin had cried into his ear. She had her front door open the moment McAvoy’s car pulled into the drive of her semidetached home on the Scartho estate in Grimsby. She had sent her four daughters into town. They had the place to themselves. Nobody would hear if he decided to break down. And by Christ, that’s what he wanted to do. Wanted to sob with frustration and fear. Wanted to be pulled into the safe folds of her curvy body and lose himself for a moment in the smell of her perfume and cigarettes. She was his boss and his best friend and aside from his family, the person he cared most about in the world. Instead, he kept her at arm’s length. Paced the living room, repeating himself, pushing his hands through his damp hair until he looked clownish and ill, asking questions, questions, questions . . .
“You’ve heard of him, yes? Brishen Ayres. Great boxer. Got hurt. Hit-and-run. Real shame. I was boxing myself in those days and he was the one everybody feared. Great coach, too. Bad lad in his youth but doing great things for Irish boxing. He’s made peace between the Heldens and the Teagues, Trish, I swear it. Valentine was so excited about going over to America. It was his big chance. He’d said he would hope to be back for the confirmation. Family hadn’t heard from him in days. Then the news started filtering through. Roisin’s family heard about what happened around the same time as the Heldens. Papa Teague said the confirmation had to go ahead. He had some of his boys on the lookout, just in case. Nothing happened at the church but once they got to the reception, that was when it all kicked off. Papa Helden was tooled up. Toting a shotgun, he was. Had half the lads with him. Roisin swears she thought her father was going to get shot dead right then and there. It was only the priest who calmed things down. He was there as a guest, representing Brishen. He put himself between Helden and Teague. Managed to get them to hold off on killing each other. He said he would make inquiries, that he had friends in America who would get to the bottom of what was happening. They’ve agreed to a cease-fire until he gets to the bottom of it. But it looks like Papa Teague thinks the worst of his son, because as soon as he had Roisin alone he begged her to use her connections—that’s what he called our marriage, a damn connection!—to make sense of it all. And she agreed! Told her daddy that her husband would fly out there and make sense of it all. Find Valentine, or at the very least save him from what the Heldens would do if they get hold of him. Trish, I’m just a Yorkshire copper. She doesn’t understand. She and the kids—they think I’m some sort of superhero who can make the bad stuff all go away. And now word has got to the Heldens that I’m going out there and that means Roisin has put herself directly in harm’s way, because if I find out that Valentine did it, they’ll expect me to help him run, and if he didn’t, they’ll think I’m lying! I don’t know what to do!”
He had wailed for an age, half to himself, half to his boss. She smoked her black cigarettes and drank her wine and untangled her hair from her big hooped earrings and plucked the dropped ash from her cleavage. Her brain was turning over so fast, he expected her eyes to spin. But she knew what to do, who to call. And she waited until he’d run out of breath before she delivered her lecture.
“Your family thinks you’re Superman and you’re complaining? Do you know what most people think of their loved ones, Hector? They think they’re thick, or weak, or so fucking boring they may as well be a brown loaf. Your problem is that your family has faith in you. Well boo-fucking-hoo. Hector, do you know what sort of a person you have to be to deserve optimism? Do you know how vastly better than everybody else you need to be for people to presume that you will win? You are the only man I’ve ever met who deserves to be thought of in entirely glowing terms, and I say this as somebody who spends a good portion of every day wanting to kick you in the teeth for being so fucking wholesome. Now, stop sniveling, be quiet, and go get me another bottle from the cupboard. I’ve got some calls to make. And if you want me to take you seriously, you’ll wipe the chocolate off your lower lip. Now, bloody move.”
McAvoy finds himself smiling as he begins to doze off. If nothing else, he is here. He’s spoken to a real New York City detective. He has drunk spirits in a Manhattan bar. He’s closing his eyes in a king-size bed in a cheap hotel on the Lower East Side. He has a list of times, places, and people. Tomorrow, he will take comfort in the simple act of procedure. He does not truly expect to find Valentine Teague, but he can at least prove himself worthy of his family’s belief in him. If he does happen to find him, he wonders whether the little sod will even be grateful. McAvoy has had little to do with him these past years. He has memories of him as a child, with his red hair and freckles and tram lines shaved into the side of his head. He was always up to mischief. Could get McAvoy’s wallet from his back pocket and empty his account while his prey was still sitting down. And as a grown man he has been little better. Fighting, stealing, ripping the lead from abandoned buildings or stealing the scaffolding from building sites. Even so, it’s hard to dislike him. He’s a beguiling soul, with his twinkly eyes and his easy charm. He’d given McAvoy all kinds of gentle abuse when they were invited to the sit-down intended to mend the bridges between Roisin and her parents, but something told McAvoy that his brother-in-law, on some level, didn’t completely hate him. That felt like a result.
In this spirit of uncertainty, McAvoy drifts off to asleep, one boot on and the other one off; sprawled in the bed where Brishen Ayres and Shay Helden slept before they sped out of New York as if hell were chasing them, on their way to damnation down a quiet road in the midst of a snow-covered forest.
As the blackness takes hold, McAvoy reaches out in his mind. Brushes his fingertips against the soft skin of a woman with dark hair and kind blue eyes. He does not know whose flesh he touches, but it brings him comfort and keeps him safe inside his dreams.