Blood And Water (13 page)

Their eyes locked, Seb and Kathryn. She thought he’d at least say something, anything, shout maybe, object, but instead he backed up a step or two and without taking his eyes off her closed the door, cutting her off from sight.

A guttural groan mixed with a pleasured laugh followed her husband’s exit, loud enough for him to hear and confusing enough to convince the idiot Cormac that he had administered pleasure sufficient to extract such a feral response.

He should have been relieved when she pushed him away, and moved to take herself out of his reach. He should have thanked her for saving him betraying his brother further. But instead he looked wildly at her, bewildered and unfinished.

“What the ...?” he objected.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” she told him calmly. “This is a mistake. You need to go.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Go.”

Kathryn moved out of reach, buttoning up her shirt, pulling down her skirt and fixing her hair.

“I don’t understand,” he exclaimed, dumbfounded by her sudden and unexplained change of mind. “I thought that was what you wanted?”

“It was, but I’ve changed my mind,” she replied, throwing in, “We can’t do this to Seb,” both for good measure and as a vehicle to bring him and his feet back down to earth.

“Changed your mind?” he almost shrieked. “Are you bloody serious?” Then, reality dawning, he looked at the envelope that still rested on the desk. “About everything?” he asked, looking at her, his eyes pleading and his tone disbelieving.

“Oh for God’s sake, just go!” she spat sharply and, stepping forwards, opened the door.

He pointed to the envelope, to his future, but she shook and bowed her head.

Confused, like it was a big joke, like she’d stop him, like she might explain what the hell just happened, he shrugged on his jacket, unfulfilled and reluctant to leave empty-handed.

She closed the door behind him and leaned heavily against it, her heart pounding in her chest. She heard him pause outside, mumble a few indecipherable but imaginable words, then leave, slamming the outside door behind him.

She hadn’t intended to keep it. She had actually withdrawn it for him but, as her plan unfolded and thinking about what lay ahead for her now, she knew she’d need it more than him.

Chapter 12

Sebastian Bertram, forty-six years of age, confounded and humiliated, walked out of his wife’s office and closed the door behind him. It was shut not in anger or disgust but with resigned defeat. Slow but walking tall, he made his way down the horrendously garish corridors out into the bright daylight and fresh air beyond the hospital doors. He stood for a moment to take a breath and measure for a minute what he had just walked away from, unsure as to how he should process it, his rational brain conflicting with the apparently preposterous nature of what he had just witnessed. It wasn’t an accident. She meant him to see it. She had invited him there and knew he’d be on time: he always was. She expected him and planned for him to walk in on them. Poor, stupid Cormac. He almost laughed at the thought of his ridiculous brother wrapped around his wife. Not just anyone, but his
wife
. How was he supposed to deal with that? That idiot was just a pawn in her freakish little game show. A chump. Her first ploy in a move to the end which he never saw coming and which Cormac was unlikely to realise he was a part of. She had launched a surprise offensive in a war Seb stupidly wasn’t even aware was being waged.

Patients and visitors flanked the doorway, dressed in a collection of parka jackets and dressing gowns, puffing away to save their lives in the filthy butt-covered health-facility entrance. The comforting tar-laden fumes snaked their way into his nostrils and deep into his lungs. He hadn’t had one since breakfast and longed for one right then but couldn’t quite see himself hanging with the patients, no matter how desperate he felt. Leaving them to their own destruction, he went along the covered walkway to the car park, paid for his ticket then made his way to the intimate comfort of his Jaguar.

Sitting into its ample interior and closing the door with a quiet
thunk
, he sat back into the leather seat, placed his hands on the wheel and lowered his head over them, rocking his forehead rhythmically against his knuckles.

He knew she wasn’t happy – hell, he wasn’t happy. With deep shame he also knew the point at which he had lost her completely. He’d overstepped the mark and recognised it as a detrimental move the moment he raised his hand. But he had been unable to stop it. Although only a week before, it felt like months ago. He’d been under enormous pressure and just snapped, tired of her caustic tongue. He shouldn’t have touched her like that, he knew it the second it was done and told her as much as soon as the haze cleared and he could think straight again. Obviously from what he had witnessed as her revenge, his apology wasn’t enough. But she had pushed him to it with her patronising, supercilious sneers and her barking remarks – that constant, endless, mindless pushing. Why did she have to go that extra mile to humiliate him? Why couldn’t she have just let him be? Why did she have to be so bloody tedious? Regardless of the multitude of excuses he could concoct, he knew he just shouldn’t have done it. At least now he knew the price he was expected to pay. A bit rich perhaps? How could they possibly move on from this? Did he even want to move on? Did she? What next?

He pressed his forehead hard against his knuckles. How was he supposed to deal with this on top of everything else? In an instant once again he felt the now familiar fog close in, felt the panic grip his heart and squeeze him tight. He felt the sweat build on his back, and his underarms heat up. Leaning back with his eyes closed, instinctively he reached to loosen his tie. His throat closed over so much he couldn’t breathe.

A knock at the window brought him rushing back to the reality of the darkening car park.

“Are you alright, son?” an elderly man asked, peering in at him through the closed and slightly tinted window, his look a combination of concern and curiosity.

Startled, Seb lifted his hand in acknowledgement.

“I’m good,” he said, lowering the window. “Just taking a moment.” He gave him a grateful reassuring smile, ignoring the temptation to tell him to bugger off and mind his own business.

The man returned his smile, nodding in recognition. “We all need one of them some time or other. As long as you’re okay.” Satisfied that Seb was in no danger, he walked towards his own car, started the engine and drove away.

Seb felt sick, his stomach reacting to the adrenaline that pumped through his system.

He shook his head in a desperate attempt to rid himself of the image of his wife’s leg wrapped seductively around his brother’s waist.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” he asked himself aloud, still reeling. Did she really have to go that far, with his
brother,
of all people? And for the first time since he was a teenager he actually felt vulnerable and afraid. The temptation to lie down and roll over, his will to fight depleted, was beyond tempting. They’d love to see him like this, his detractors. This was what she wanted. To hurt him. To demean him, see him suffer.

“Well done, you!” he saluted his absent wife, sorry she wasn’t there to hear his words. “It worked, you should feel quite proud of yourself, if that’s how you want to play it.”

As was his nature, it didn’t take long for the anger to build, his defence mechanism to recharge and his will to fight return, fully loaded.

“I’ll deal with you later but first I have to deal with a different bastard!”

And, putting the key in the ignition, he revved the engine and sped from the car park.

If anything the encounter with his brother and wife gave him the impetus he needed to tackle his father and put the adrenaline to good use. In his mind’s eye they were one and the same: his father, his brother, his wife, all serving together to do him harm. In the car as he drove he made two calls: the first to the bank, the second to his solicitor.

Fired up, the thirty-minute drive through the city passed in a mélange of grey, morphing into a shapeless, fast-moving blur passing outside the window, but inside everything was still. Just as it should be. Moving at the same speed as himself: in tune and synchronised. The familiar rattle and hum of the car as it drove over the uneven surface of the bridge was the signal of a ten-minute arrival time at his parents’ house. Pushing against the steering wheel, he braced his arms and took a deep breath, steeling himself for what was to come.

Slowing right down he turned into the tree-lined street and seconds later to the entrance of the elegant five-bedroom Victorian villa. Overshadowed by the tall oak and ash trees that provided the all-important privacy to the Bertram family, natural light didn’t stand a chance in amongst the dense foliage and thick weave of branches. Getting out of the car he pressed a short sequence of numbers into the key-pad mounted on the perimeter wall and returned to his car as the tall wooden gates glided open. The slow sound of tyres on the short stone driveway was like teeth biting into burnt toast: a crunching, brittle sound that had been the same, never changing, ever since his childhood. He pulled up between his father’s white Mercedes and his mother’s hardly driven Volkswagen Golf. Instinctively locking the car, even though he probably didn’t need to within the safety of his parents’ little enclave, he walked up the majestic granite steps to the front door and banged the brass knocker, as old as the house itself, against the solid door. He had keys somewhere and there was always the secret key out here but he hadn’t used either since the day he moved out over twenty years ago. He had no need. The knocker was good enough for him: it defined him as a visitor, which he was more than happy with. Poised and ready, he waited for the faint sound of footsteps and the glossy black door to open.

It was impossible to deny that the house was beautiful, despite the colouring of his grim childhood memories. As children, they seemed to exist in a constant state of belligerence. Someone always fighting with someone else. His own fights with his father, the endless battle of wits, the constant scrapping with his sisters, their mindless bickering and his seemingly endless gripe with Rian who annoyingly rarely fought back. Weak, insipid Rian. Even the girls put up a better fight than him. He was easy and very, very irritating prey. And as for Cormac, the bastard, he was the mover within the group without, it appeared, upsetting anyone. The constant playmaker, he had the vision to lead and the charisma to bring people along with him, the ultimate politician – how he hadn’t followed their father into either the law or the party he didn’t quite know. The hand-shaker and peace-negotiator, the defender and the operator, always in some way serving his own end but never in a malicious way – someone else always came out of it thanking him. Once again the image of Cormac buried in his wife reappeared to torment him and despite himself a smile crossed his lips. Kathryn was the manipulator in this case, of that he was sure. She had obviously seen an opportunity and leveraged it to her own ends. If it were anyone else’s plan, he’d probably admire it.

Seb’s heart pumped in anticipation of what he still had to do and, with no sign of anyone coming to the door he knocked again, louder this time, and leaned around to see if he could see any movement through the sash windows. Even when it was bright outside, inside the house was always cold and dark. There was always a light on and today was no different but with the curtains half drawn it was difficult to see beyond them. It used to irritate him as he grew up that no one ever pulled the curtains back fully – always seeming to struggle with daylight, like vampires afraid of what terrors it might reveal. Either that or someone was more worried about what others would see from the outside in. In total there were twenty-four rooms across the three floors of the house, only ten of which as children they were allowed to enter: their individual bedrooms, the kitchen, the playroom, the bathroom, the utility room and, most importantly, the pantry. All others were strictly out of bounds unless in the company of either parent or their nanny. Out of fear of physical retribution from their father they never disobeyed the order. He was never afraid to use the back of his hand. To this day Seb couldn’t confidently map the rooms within the various layers and along the different corridors. Now, no more than then, he neither cared nor bothered about what lived behind the discoloured and ancient six-panel doors.

A third, louder knock resulted in the sound of clunky hurrying footsteps and eventually an out-of-breath Gladys opened the door.

“Sorry, sir – I was in the kitchen and didn’t hear you – my hearing’s not what it used to be.”

Gladys had been their housekeeper for as long as he could remember and just like the house she hadn’t changed much over the years: a little smaller perhaps, definitely greyer, but despite her faded sheen she was still the same old Gladys.

“Gladys,” he greeted her patiently. “And please,” he said as he entered, inflicting a forced smile on her, “as I’ve said countless times before, ‘Seb’ will do just fine, thanks.” He hated being called
sir –
well, in this house anyhow. ‘Sir’ was his father’s title and within these walls it had different connotations to elsewhere socially.

“Is my father here?” he asked.

“Just in,” she replied formally. “He’s in the study.” Standing back, she waited for him to pass into the hall. “Can I get you some tea?” she offered, doing her best to buffer the tension that oozed from him.

“No, thank you, Gladys, I’m fine.”

Taking off his coat to hang on the ornate hall stand, he checked his reflection in its mirror before turning away.

Taking a breath, he ignored the nerves that tingled in the pit of his stomach and took confidence from the defensive fury that smouldered dangerously inside him. Pausing for a moment, he reminded himself that he was a man in control and he had a job to do. He needed to think strategically. His father was a complex individual who would fire everything he could at him so he needed to be prepared and try to think one step ahead.