Blood And Water

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published 2016

by Poolbeg Press Ltd.

123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle,

Dublin 13, Ireland

Email: [email protected]

© SIOBHÁIN BUNNI 2016

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Copyright for typesetting, layout, design, ebook

© Poolbeg Press Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978178199-2173

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.poolbeg.com

About the Author

Born in 1968 in Baghdad, Iraq, Siobháin is one of six children born to her Irish mother and Iraqi father. Educated in Kylemore Abbey in Connemara, she then graduated from the College of Marketing & Design in Dublin. She lives in Malahide with her three children, Daniel, Lara and Lulu.

Acknowledgements

I don’t for one minute take for granted the honour of having a publishing contract, but writing with a real deadline is a totally different experience to writing with only myself to answer to.
Blood & Water
should have taken a year to deliver but life got in the way and it has taken almost three. And it’s been an incredibly rewarding but strangely focused experience, so when it comes to those I need to thank, this time around, there is only a handful of amazing people on my list.

Thank you so much, Paula Campbell, Poolbeg’s fine publisher, for having the patience to stick with me.

No nonsense and straight to the point Gaye Shortland, my enduring editor, gentle but firm, I am very grateful for your keen eye and for recognising the thread that made the story.

Outside of writing but ever present in the background are my parents, Nael and Anne Bunni to whom this book is dedicated, for their continued advice and support.

For my brother Layth and his fiancée SarahJane for constantly checking in and making sure I’m on track.

Once again I have to thank my sister Lara. What can I say? You’re a mad yoke, but you keep me smiling and make me feel loved!

For my sister Nadia and brother-in-law Paul who pleaded to read a draft – not sure if they’ve actually read it, but thanks anyway for being curious!

On the lighter side, literally, for Aidan and the Gym Bunnies (!) at Just Classes in Malahide for the brief, very energetic and utterly fatiguing moments of fun in my week – thanks a million.

And finally for my three children, Daniel, Lara and Lulu. You make me proud habitually, you make me laugh loudly, you make me happy daily and are the reason I get up each day glad to be alive and honoured to be your mum.

Dedication

For my Mum and Dad, Anne & Nael, with infinite love and gratitude.

Prologue

They carried the coffin into the crammed church, two abreast and three deep, their footsteps falling in time to the sombre drone of the organ. In silence they offered up the polished rosewood casket at the front of the altar. A long display of white lilies was placed on its top, then one by one they genuflected and turned to take their places in the pews reserved for the family at the top of the church. The three brothers stepped into the first pew beside their sisters and mother. From behind they were a unified force, standing tall, shoulder to shoulder, all dressed in black for the occasion.

Here the siblings were in familiar territory: this was where they had come as children to pray each week. It was where their parents had married and where they were each christened, all five of them. However, on this day they were burying one of their own earlier than they could ever have expected, and under less than usual circumstances.

An enormously well-respected family with almost celebrity status, this deference was evident in the numbers that gathered to mourn alongside them, with sympathisers spilling out the doors onto the gravel square outside. Government ministers standing side by side with local dignitaries, friends and neighbours. To the outside world, spectators to the event, they were solid. This, they reflected quietly in their seats, was a close-knit family that didn’t need the emotion of grief to be united. They were the family that was referenced around other folks’ dinner tables, the ‘
Why can’t you be more like Sebastian Bertram, so polite, so smart?’
or ‘
Cormac Bertram, he’s handsome, so entertaining
’. The tactless statements that every other child dreads to hear: the comparison and the disappointment. Today that admiration and respect was amplified.

Together they stood tall, heads bowed: a fine and imposing example of family unity. A family any parent would be proud of.

Detective Inspector Milford stood at the end of his carefully chosen pew in the west transept and watched them standing together. The opening hymn ended and they took their seats, heads down, eyes focused on the floor, each lost in his or her own grief.

From the pulpit, one of the celebrating priests welcomed the congregation, calling it a day of great sadness, a day of enormous loss not just for the family but also for the community and the county – the loss of a true statesman and long-serving politician who gave his service to the county and the cause he so obviously loved. He bowed his head in sorrow as he extended his sympathies to Barbara, the grieving widow, who without lifting her gaze from the floor shook her head as if to deny the reality of what was happening. Poignantly then he invited them to join him in prayer for the repose of a soul that was taken so prematurely, so violently, from them.

Milford didn’t take his eyes off the front pew, noting their every move, every nod of their heads and shift in body pressure. He didn’t miss a budge or nudge or a single word, their incantations and their hymns, their participation and their expressions. He watched them from start to finish and admired their staunch, stoic performance. And when they spoke from the rostrum their voices boomed through the vaulted church, the readings and prayers delivered so beautifully and with such perfect pitch and diction. And, like the rest of the congregation, he found himself thinking how extraordinary they were but for reasons different to those of the grieving onlookers.

As funerals go it was almost perfect. It had mood and humility; it spoke of greatness in this life and rewards reaped in the next. Extolling the life lived and celebrating great achievements, the priest rejoiced not just in the deceased, but also in those that he had influenced around him. And the music: what an impressive arrangement – sentimental when required yet uplifting as the words declared a welcome into heaven.

Heaven: do we really still believe in that concept, Milford wondered while he watched and listened. He was more of a live-for-today kind of a guy – Carpe Diem and all that – happy to leave the caretaking of heaven to God, if one existed. And while he wasn’t so sure about heaven he was certain of a final judgment, and not in heaven but here on earth, in the here and the now. Sceptically he scoffed as the creed warned:
“From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.”

Yes, apart from his own heathen wonderings, the service was almost faultless and that, for Milford, was the quandary. If the priest hadn’t regularly mentioned the name of the deceased throughout, it could have been anyone’s funeral. It was textbook stuff. Definitely not his preference.

Curiously, for someone who died so suddenly there were no tears, like it was a relief or a long time coming, Milford surmised, then silently admonished himself for stepping ahead of the investigation, a classic error he often had to reprimand his overly eager juniors for. But his instinct wasn’t often wrong.

As the service reached an end, again the men took up their positions at the elaborate casket to lift and bear its weight on their shoulders. Slowly, arms bracing each other, they followed the three celebrating ministers down the aisle, passing through the heady scent of burning oils and incense. The church bell tolled loudly, once for every year of his life, its ring sounding a bleak and sorrowful pulse into the crisp autumn morning.

Barbara, dressed elegantly in an expensive fur coat and hat ensemble, flanked on either side by the girls, stood to take up her position as chief mourner behind the coffin. Someone, she wasn’t sure who, handed her a single long-stemmed lily which she held loosely in her hand. Why, she wasn’t sure. He always hated lilies, she thought as they paraded down the red carpet towards the glaring brightness of the open doors. She did her utmost to ignore the well-meaning but, in her mind, patronising stares that honed in and watched them like hawks as they moved. She felt exposed, on display. Not sure what to do or how to behave she kept her eyes, like raging fireballs in their sockets, focused forward. She wished she’d had the foresight to take her sunglasses from her bag before leaving her seat. There should be tears. Why are there no tears, she asked herself. Taking assurance from the hand that gently squeezed her arm, she briefly entertained the urge to wring one out, for show if for nothing else. What must they think of us? But she simply didn’t have the energy and instead did her best to ignore the audience. The stinging sun assaulted her eyes as slowly they stepped into the sunshine. Shielding herself from the burning rays, she let Ciara take her bag and dig out her glasses for her. Putting them on, she smiled and nodded politely, relieved by the privacy they afforded.

Reverently the coffin-bearers navigated the steps into the crowds outside: the late arrivals and the ones that couldn’t squeeze into the packed church. Parting biblically, heads lowered, the gathering made way for the procession that snaked around and alongside the old majestic granite church, then headed up the gently sloping path to the graveyard where the open grave and an unsettling pile of freshly dug clay awaited. Perfectly timed, the last toll sounded as they reached the graveside where the coffin was awkwardly lowered on to the banded pulleys that would drop William Bertram’s rigid bulk into the ground.

How had it come to this, Barbara asked herself, hardly able to remember the past few days, never mind the last few decades. Was there a point in time that she could actually mark, a point from which it had all spiralled so wildly out of control? This wasn’t a spontaneous thing, she knew that. Things like this didn’t
justhappen
. It had been building for a very long time. Our finest hour, she mocked silently. She wished she could say it wasn’t, wished she could say that it had been an impetuous act of frustration that just got out of hand, went too far. But that would be a lie. This, she acknowledged rationally, was a culmination of years of actions. No one was more cognisant of that than she.