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time.’
    Rundle clicks his tongue.
    ‘Right.’ He turns around and leans back against the marble counter. ‘What have the doctors said? Is he going to need a plaster cast? A brace of some kind? How’s it going to look?’
    Herb Felder sighs, probably frustrated at not having his concerns addressed. When he replies his tone is more clipped than before. ‘He’ll have a brace. There won’t be any way of hiding it.’
    Now Rundle sighs.
    ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Here’s what we do. I’m going to talk to Don Ribcoff. He’s got people on the ground over there –’
    ‘But I thought Gideon –’
    ‘PR people, it’s an affiliate company. They do strategic communications. The Jordan Group.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Oh? Rundle makes a face. What the fuck? The guy’s feelings are hurt? ‘Look,’ he says, ‘it’s better if they take care of this. Better if you stay out of it, in fact.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘In case it comes back and bites you in the ass, that’s why. The Jordan people will feed something into the news cycle and you just run with it. The less you know about how it got there the better.’
    ‘Mr Rundle, with respect, I know how this works.’
    Rundle rolls his eyes. ‘Well then, I shouldn’t have to tell you how important maintaining distance and deniability is, should I?’
    He pictures Herb Felder rolling his eyes.
    ‘No, Mr Rundle, I suppose not.’
    Herb’s a smart guy and will probably go all the way with J.J., but he’s a wonk, his strong suit is policy, explaining it, packaging it.
    This is a little different.
    Some of the other aides around J.J. – the campaign veterans, the oppo men – would be more up to speed, more au fait with the techniques here, with the philosophy, but Herb’s the one he got through to.
    ‘So when the Senator wakes up, Herb, tell him we spoke, yeah?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘And tell him to call me.’
    Rundle closes the phone and puts it back on the counter. He looks around.
    What does he do now?
    He can either put on some coffee and work for a bit – send a few e-mails, read the online editions of the morning papers – or he can go back to bed and just lie there tormenting himself with different shit until it’s time to get up.
    He looks at the display on the cooker.
    5:01.
    He knows what the old man would do. Or, at any rate, would have done. Taken advantage of the situation. Maximised it.
    Rundle reaches up to an overhead shelf and takes down the coffee grinder.
    Though no doubt old Henry C. would have been up at five in any case, so it’s a moot point.
    He puts beans in the grinder and switches it on.
    But to be fair – he thinks, holding the grinder down – fair to himself  … hasn’t he always maximised his opportunities? Hasn’t he transformed BRX Mining & Engineering out of all recognition, way beyond anything the old man, if he were alive today, would even comprehend?
    Yeah, yeah.
    He releases the grinder. Its whirr slows gradually, then stops.
    So does that mean he can go back to bed?
    He actually considers it for a moment.
    But what would be the point? It’d only lead to more dreams. More Irishmen and Chinamen.
    Forget it.
    He looks around for the coffee filters.
    *   *   *
    From the moment he wakes up Jimmy Gilroy is aware that things are different, that there’s been a fundamental shift – tectonic plates, paradigm, take your pick. Yesterday he was working his way in isolation through a mountain of research material. This morning – bloodied, in full view – he’s caught in the barbed wire of human contact.
    He gets up and goes over to the bathroom. He didn’t sleep well and he’s tired. He looks in the mirror, holds his own gaze for a moment, sees the old man, then looks away. Everyone says it, and it’s true … after a certain age you’re never alone in front of a mirror.
    Sitting on the toilet, he wonders what Phil Sweeney is up to. Is he really representing the family of one of the other victims? It’s not implausible and is certainly the