"He"s right. She is a f.u.c.king headcase. A druggie. If you found her you"d be doing the girls and her some good. They need to be out of that environment and she needs to be in a clinic somewhere," Eichel said.
Killian nodded, stepped into the boat and put on a brave face as it sped out into the Pearl River Delta. The scene was a mash-up of Ca.n.a.letto and Ridley Scott: in the Kowloon-Hong Kong harbour area the buildings were on top of one another like a squeezed Manhattan, the architecture functional, a dizzying vertical city that was all about maximizing s.p.a.ce with few flourishes, but further out the Pearl River was crammed with junks, cargo boats, ferries, fast ferries, oil tankers, trawlers, yachts.
How many people lived here? Five million, ten? He"d forgotten to do his homework and instead he had spent what time he had available catching up with all the latest news on d.i.c.k Coulter. Which actually turned out to be pretty interesting. Sean wasn"t kidding about trouble. Coulter Air was slashing routes left and right, had cancelled all their flights out of Derry and Glasgow and Coulter had been complaining in the tabloids that the British Airports Authority was killing his business with their taxes. The Icelandic volcano had cost Coulter Air close to fifteen million dollars and the world recession wasn"t helping either. Also nothing, nothing at all in the press about a missing ex-wife and kids, which was impressive. That showed real clout.
Further out from Hong Kong city Killian spotted newer apartment buildings on the mainland marching up and down tropical mountainsides. It reminded him a little of Rio, except there the jungle was being colonised by favelas and there was an organic give and take to the process. This was all take. Hong Kong was owned by man and its sea and earth and mountain were being made to bend to man"s will.
Killian wondered if it might make a good dissertation project but before he could think about it Mr Coulter"s pilot gunned the big cigarette boat up to twenty and then thirty knots, bouncing it off the waves, beelining for some point on the horizon.
Now all Killian could think about was keeping down his Cathay Pacific breakfast. He stood near a gunwale and gripped a metal rail.
"How long will this take?" he asked, but neither man could hear his plaintive croak over the engine noise.
He closed his eyes and that made things worse. He took deep breaths. For Killian this was far more terrifying than having a loaded shotgun pointed at him.
Like most tinkers he had never learned to swim but for him it was a real phobia. He was terrified of water. When he was thirteen he had ridden a horse over the Bann for a dare and the horse had dumped him mid-stream.
Luck, nothing else, had saved him.
He still had the nightmares.
"How far to Macau?" he shouted again.
"There!" one of the two men said.
He looked ahead and saw the Las Vegas Strip on the South China Sea. Even more vertiginous buildings in parallel blocks on a thin slice of land. The illusion continued all the way to the harbour - what was missing was the desert but it was dusk now and the darkening sea filled that gap; money and geography did the rest.
He couldn"t appreciate it. He staggered to the back of the boat and returned the breakfast scampi to its native element.
One of the two men laughed and the other said something in Cantonese which made the first laugh louder.
b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, Killian thought half-heartedly.
The boat docked at a wooden pier with tyres bobbing on the side as fenders. A European man wearing a chauffeur"s uniform and already speaking into a mobile was waiting for them. Killian wiped his mouth and allowed himself to be helped from the boat. His head was spinning. The jet lag and lack of sleep weren"t helping much either.
Mercifully, the car was close. He walked to an open limo and got in the back.
The Strip a.n.a.logy continued but it was denser than Vegas as land was at more of a premium. The people were Chinese but the names were familiar: the MGM, the Venetian, Caesars Palace.
They pulled into an underground garage. The driver walked him to an elevator, put in a card key and pressed the PH b.u.t.ton. He held the door for Killian but didn"t get in with him.
The lift doors closed and Killian counted forty floors before the penthouse.
He"d been steeling himself for the chunky, potato-faced Coulter he"d seen on telly and in real life a few times at various things in Dublin and Belfast, but when the doors opened, standing there was a pregnant woman, late twenties, long brown hair, deeply tanned. Very attractive.
"h.e.l.lo, I"m Helena," she said.
"Hi, I"m Killian."
They shook hands. Her fingers barely touched his, which made Killian think that she shook a lot of hands in any one day. Charity fund-raisers, that kind of thing.
"My husband"s running a little late and Tom"s in the city," she said.
"I saw Mr Eichel briefly already."
"Oh, I see. Would you like a drink?"
"Yeah I would, thank you, that boat journey..."
"Boat journey? Ah, right. We didn"t take the boat. It must have been very beautiful."
The woman had a funny way of speaking English. She was Italian, French, something like that, but with an English boarding-school education. Almost certainly an ex-model or actress or TV presenter. Just the thing Coulter thought might impress everybody back home.
Killian unslung the bicycle messenger bag from his shoulder and let it drop to the floor while she walked to a long bar that was stacked with bottles, c.o.c.ktail shakers and draft beer taps.
"Let me do that," Killian said.
"No, no, you sit down," she insisted. "Now, what can I get you?"
"Vodka tonic, heavy on the tonic and a lot of ice, please."
She brought him the drink and sat on a complementary black leather sola opposite his. He removed a plastic stirring stick and looked around the room. South-western motifs. Leather furniture. Animal heads. Brick fireplace and a real chimney. In this locale it was ridiculous.
"You like it?" she asked, following his gaze.
"It"s nice."
"It"s just our flat for here. We live in Ireland."
"Aye, I know. Me too," Killian said.
"Oh, I didn"t recognize the accent - whereabouts in Ireland?"
"You know Carrick?"
Helena shook her head.
"It"s near Belfast. You must have driven through it."
"Possibly, I don"t know."
"How long have you been married?"
"Six months."
"Congratulations."
He took a sip of the vodka tonic, it was at least half vodka.
"You pour a mean drink," he said.
"Is it too strong?" she asked with a conman smile that immediately got her into his good books.
"How do you get here from Hong Kong if you don"t take a boat?" he asked.
She made a little helicopter sign with her fingers which Killian also found adorable.
"h.e.l.lo?" Coulter called from another part of the flat, his Ballymena accent unmistakable. His brogue had got defiantly stronger the more famous he had become until now it was a parody of itself, sort of a cross between Ian Paisley, Seamus Heaney and Liam Neeson, all of whom grew up in the same general area.
"We"re in the living room, darling," Helena said.
"The peeler"s with you?" Coulter shouted.
"The man you hired, yes."
"Did you tell him anything?"
"No."
Coulter opened a door and came into the room. He looked sprightly, cheerful, like a demented elf. He was about five-seven, with dyed black hair and a tanned freckled face that had not been untroubled by the knives of gifted surgeons. He looked healthy and good. Killian knew that Coulter put it about that he was in his mid-fifties but actually he was closer to sixty.
In his heyday, four or five years ago, he"d been on the box frequently doing chat shows, variety shows, showing up as a rent-a-quote when there was news about the airline industry.
On the tube he had a stage Irishman, slightly sleazy air about him but in real life he seemed more like a successful ex-footballer or boxer a few years from the ring. There was a sort of rural Mick integrity to him.
Killian stood up. Coulter nodded to him, kissed his wife and got himself a drink from the bar.
"Where"s Tom?" he asked Helena.
"Stuck in the city," she replied. He kissed her again, sat down and then leaned forward and offered Killian his hand.
"Tom talked to Sean Byrne about you, Sean says you"re the best," Coulter said. Killian nodded. "Sean"s my manager, what else is he going to say?"
Coulter ignored this. "And apparently you know Bridget and Michael Forsythe?"
"I"ve met Michael a couple of times and I"ve done a few wee jobs for him over the years," Killian said truthfully.
"Well, he speaks highly of your work," Coulter said and then added in an undertone, "and he would know."
Killian winced. It reminded him again of that Christmas Eve when he and a bunch of other guys had f.u.c.ked up their bodyguarding gig and let Michael make fools of them and top their boss. If he"d been j.a.panese, no doubt the only honorable course after that would have been b.l.o.o.d.y suicide. But he wasn"t j.a.panese, he was a Pavee and half of all Pavee were dead before they were forty. Suicide was the luxury of long-lived people.
"How was your trip?" Coulter asked.
"No problems."
"They brought you in a speedboat, right?"
"Aye, it was very Bond villain, I was impressed."
Coulter smiled. "And who did you fly with?"
"Cathay Pacific."
"They"re good. Fully horizontal chairs, right?"
"Well there was a bit more room than b.l.o.o.d.y Coulter Air," Killian just about resisted saying and instead offered the safer: "Very good service. How is the airline business these days?"
Now it was Coulter"s turn to wince. "We lurch from crisis to crisis. Pa.s.senger numbers are off, fuel"s still historically high, taxes are through the roof. They"re killing the goose. You know I had to cut half our routes out of Luton? The taxes were three times the cost of the ticket. b.l.o.o.d.y BAA. Idiots. The volcano dust! Volcano dust is it? My G.o.d. No, no, it"s still not good. We"re gonna be in the red all this year and probably the first quarter of next."
Killian nodded and the conversation died.
It wasn"t Killian"s place to revive it but he felt uncomfortable with Helena just sitting there looking awkward.
"So I hear you"re going to be the first Irishman in s.p.a.ce?" he said, hoping to chance upon a happier topic.
"Not if I have any say in the matter," Helena said with a laugh.
Coulter laughed with her. "Honey, I"m on the first flight with Richard Branson and his kids and Sigourney Weaver and Bill f.u.c.king Shatner! It"s gonna be safe as houses."
Helena rolled her eyes and Coulter leaned across and kissed her on the cheek. Helena kissed him back on the lips.
Killian smiled. Despite the age and other differences these two clearly adored each other.
Coulter turned to Killian. "And it"s mostly for PR, you know? The a.s.sociation with Branson is good for us, and the publicity in the tabloids will be gold. Branson has promised me I will be on the very first flight, so don"t believe anything you hear about Michael O"Leary, he"s not booked till flight three."
Killian knew the story. He had read that this s.p.a.ce race between Coulter and O"Leary - two of Ireland"s richest men - was fierce.
"I"m impressed," Killian said and meant it - you wouldn"t catch him going up in a rocket and he had nothing to lose, never mind a pregnant Italian model wife.
They talked airlines and flying for a couple of minutes before Coulter turned to Helena and with an apologetic grin said: "Darling, would you possibly excuse us for a moment? I"d like to talk business with Mr Killian, here."
"Of course," she said. Coulter helped her to her feet. Killian stood again and watched her walk to the door.
"You like Helena?" Coulter asked when she was gone.
"She seems nice."
"She"s from Arpino," Coulter said and swirled the Scotch in his gla.s.s for a second or two before taking a sip.
"I don"t know where that is," Killian said.
Coulter unb.u.t.toned the jacket of his immaculately tailored blue suit and leaned forward.
"It"s in, uhm, she"s from..." Coulter said and his eyes narrowed, his lingers squeezed tighter on the whisky gla.s.s and his temple throbbed through the tan.
"Are you okay?" Killian asked.
"Yes. I"m just...This whole thing. It"s the last thing I need. She couldn"t have picked a better time. Everything"s so fragile. You work so hard and it"s all so f.u.c.king fragile," Coulter said.