Grace did a quick calculation. He needed to be at Newark Airport by 7 p.m., which meant leaving Manhattan at 6 p.m. This gave him a shade under seven and a half hours to find Pollock, or return home empty-handed. He intended leaving Batchelor and Alexander out here, but all his instincts were that today was the day that counted.

If they didn’t find Eamonn Pollock with the Patek Philippe in his hot, sweaty palm, they weren’t going to have a hope in hell, right now, of charging him with anything.

Pat Lanigan turned round to face him. ‘Any news from the others?’

‘Goose eggs,’ Grace said with a grim smile. And that’s what this felt like at the moment: a wild goose chase. Eamonn Pollock had done the rounds of the legitimate dealers on Friday, no doubt to fix a value for the watch in the market. But now, very obviously, he was not being stupid and risking walking into a trap.

He peered out of the window at a street vendor, with his stall selling hats and scarves. A cyclist wormed past them, bell pinging. A fire engine honked its way through traffic close by. Then he looked up at a wall, rising sheer into the sky, with maybe a thousand windows. Eamonn Pollock could be behind any one of those at this moment. Behind any one of the millions and millions of windows of this city.

One man and a watch.

A needle in a haystack.

112

Pointing the gun at his son, Gavin Daly said, ‘Take the chart, we’re going.’ Then he turned back to Rosenblaum. ‘Julius, I’m sorry for the damage I caused, and send me the bill for whatever it costs to fix. I’m also apologizing in advance for what’s about to happen, and any further damage.’ He reached forward, picked the watch off the table and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

Eamonn Pollock started to stand up.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Daly snapped, pointing the gun at him. ‘Sit down! You’re not going anywhere. I’m not done with you yet. You know how the Irish punish people? A bullet in the kneecap. I should give you one in each knee – one for what your uncle did to my ma and one for what he did to my pop. Yes? That’s what I think I should do.’

Pollock, his eyes bulging in fear, was shaking his head frantically. ‘Please. I’ll tell you everything I know.’

‘Gavin,’ Rosenblaum cautioned.

‘Julius, this skunk’s uncle ruined my childhood. Now this skunk himself has ruined my old age. You think he deserves mercy? This fat, greedy vulture?’

‘Gavin, calm down, let’s hear him out.’

He turned to Pollock. ‘I’m all ears, you piece of blubber.’

‘I lent Lucas money – he came to me and I helped him out.’

‘How nice of you. Then he didn’t pay you back? Did I get that one right?’

‘Yes, Dad, he has a moneylending business,’ Lucas interjected.

‘You’re a moneylender, are you?’ Gavin Daly’s finger was shaking on the trigger. ‘A proper little Shylock?’

Julius Rosenblaum took a step towards his desk.

‘Don’t move another inch, Julius. You hit your panic button and I’ll shoot you too, God help me I will.’

‘Gavin, you have to calm down!’ Rosenblaum said.

‘No, I’m ninety-five years old; I don’t have to calm down.’ He looked back at Pollock. ‘You sent two pieces of shit – maybe three pieces of shit – to rob a ninety-eight-year-old lady who’d done no harm to anyone in her life. They tortured the fuck out of my sister, and you want mercy from me? Yes?’

‘Those were never my instructions.’

‘Oh, really? You had the code to the safe from my piece-of-shit son, so why did they have to torture my sister? They stole ten million pounds’ worth of antiques, and they tortured her to death for her credit card pin codes, for a few hundred lousy quid. Did they do it for fun, or is that because you were too greedy to pay them decently for doing your filthy work for you?’

Pollock was shaking. ‘I didn’t, no, that’s not right.’

‘Stand up!’

Eamonn Pollock pushed himself upright and stood, cowed and quivering.

Gavin Daly stared at the dark stain around his groin. ‘You’ve just pissed yourself. What kind of a man are you?’

Pollock stared wildly around, as if looking for an escape route.

‘Dad, let’s be calm!’ Lucas said.

‘Calm? From a man who beats up his wife regularly, that’s rich!’ He turned to Julius Rosenblaum. ‘She’s a very pretty, very smart television presenter. When Lucas hits her, he makes sure it is always below the neckline, so it doesn’t show in public, so it doesn’t hurt her ability to earn a high salary – for him to squander. He’s a brave man, my son is. Know what I’ve always believed?’ He covered all three in turn with the gun. ‘You judge a man by the friends he keeps. Eamonn and Lucas, you deserve each other.’

‘Hurting Aileen was never intended, please believe me,’ Eamonn Pollock whimpered. ‘Please believe me.’

‘You employed those men, Ken Barnes and Tony Macario. They’d worked for you for a long time. You must have known what they were like, what they would do when you set them loose on an elderly, defenceless lady? What’s to believe?’

‘Please believe me.’

Gavin Daly pulled the trigger. There was another thunderclap and an explosion of blood in Pollock’s right shoulder, sending him hurtling back onto the floor. His mouth was wide open, his eyes looking like they were shorting out.

‘Oops, sorry, Eamonn, I didn’t mean to do that. Do you believe me?’

‘Gavin!’ Rosenblaum shouted, in shock.

‘Dad!’ Lucas shouted.

‘That was for my ma; this is for my pop!’ Gavin Daly fired again. Pollock jumped in the air, as if a defibrillator had gone off on his chest, and a crimson patch of blood began spreading from his left shoulder.

‘No! No! No!’ Eamonn Pollock was thrashing on the floor, crying in pain and terror, holding his hands in the air, in front of his face as if they could stop the next bullet.

‘Gavin!’ Rosenblaum said. ‘Stop, man! Have you gone crazy?’ He took another step towards his desk.

Daly pointed the gun at Rosenblaum. ‘Don’t move.’

He swung the gun back at Pollock.

‘No, for God’s sake, no. Please. Oh God, no!’ Pollock squealed, crabbing his way across the carpet on his back.

Daly took careful aim at Pollock’s crotch. ‘This one’s for Aileen.’

‘No!’ he screeched. ‘Please no, please no, please no!’

He fired straight into the dark stain.

Pollock let out an animal howl. He sat up straight, his face contorted, his hands pressing desperately at his groin, his whole body convulsing; a low yammering, which was getting louder and louder every second, came from somewhere deep inside his throat.

‘Jesus Christ, Gavin!’ Rosenblaum said.

He pointed the gun at Lucas. ‘We’re out of here, son.’

Lucas was frozen to the spot.

Gavin Daly walked across to the door, swinging the gun towards his son and then Julius Rosenblaum, then his son again. ‘I’m sorry, Julius, sorry it had to be here.’

Pollock’s screams were almost deafening now.

Daly reached the door, still keeping Rosenblaum motionless with his gun. Then he looked down at Pollock, sheet white, his face a contorted, agonized, clammy mass of perspiration, his eyes rolling; he was breathing in short, fast gasps, still clutching his groin, his hands covered in blood.

‘Have fun next time you try to screw someone, Pollock.’ Then he pointed the gun at his son, who was holding the chart and looking like a rabbit caught in headlights. ‘You, you’re coming with me.’

Then he threw the gun on the floor. ‘I’m done with it,’ he said. ‘Maybe my dad sent it to me for a purpose. I don’t know. But I’m done with it.’

Followed by Lucas, Gavin Daly stomped past the secretary, who looked frozen in shock, out and into the elevator.

‘Dad, this is insane!’ Lucas said as the elevator clanked its way down. ‘Have you lost your fucking mind?’