Blood And Water (17 page)

When his father had told him months back that the bank had agreed in principle to lend him his portion of the money, Seb was more than a little surprised and wondered at the time how on earth his father had convinced them to finance his share of the project. Now he knew: he had used Tanglewood as collateral. His own signature,
Sebastian Bertram
, danced beautifully on the page in front of him. The implications beyond the legal were profound. Seb felt his temperature rise. He hadn’t felt this much contempt for his father in years.

“How dare you?” he whispered and, raising his voice, repeated the words with fervour. “
How bloody dare you!
”

“
Don’t speak to me like that!
” William responded with equal intensity.

“You son of a bitch!” Sebastian stood to face his father. “This was your deal. You asked me to do this. You were the one who came to me.” His voice was quiet but strong, realising with incredulity that this was always part of his father’s plan. “And all the while you used me,” he continued, taking a step towards him. “You and your bastard friends used me. And if that’s not bad enough, like you haven’t done enough damage already, you have taken advantage of your grieving daughter. What kind of a mean-minded, sadistic prick does that?”

William stood fast, firm and silent, pulling back his broad shoulders and lifting his chin in defiance.

Seb took another step forward. “Tell me,” he said quietly, only to release a second short, sharp roar seconds later that made the big man in front of him jump. “
Tell me!”

Was he imagining it or did he see a flicker of consternation in those cold, old grey eyes?

The pressure and stress that had been gathering pace all week and had risen even further this morning was finding its release. Anger at his wife and fury at his brother combined with rage at the nefarious intent of his father to form a cataclysmic explosion of livid emotion, all directed at William. His towering, traitorous father. And with the floodgates opened and the adrenaline pumping, even if he wanted to there was no way for him to stop the words from coming out. Along with his voice Seb’s index finger lifted and pointed, driving home his words. Without realising it, he was shouting and for the first time ever standing up to his father.

“You gathered your players. You organised their money. You wrote the damn investment brief for Christ’s sake and then you played me for an idiot, that’s what you did. And what, Father dear,” he raved, his voice laced with derision, “are you going to tell Enya? Now that she’s back and plans on selling the house, you’ll need to tell her something. Without the deeds of the house she can’t sell it, can she? How are you going to tell her she can’t? How are you going to explain that?” He was bellowing, taking single steps, like punctuation marks, closer to William. “You can’t, can you? There’s no real way for you to explain how or why you forged my signature and stole from your daughter for your own greedy satisfaction, now is there? Nothing you can say now could possibly make what you have done right.”

Spent, he took a breath and turned away, counting in his head, trying his best to regain his composure.

“So,” he resumed carefully once he’d recovered a level of control, “this is how this is going to pan out. If they ask, you’re going to own up to what you have done and make it crystal clear that I had nothing to do with it. Right?” He waited for his father to respond but when he didn’t he turned back to face him and prepared to repeat his words. “I said –”

“I heard what you said,” William replied firmly, the calm crust of his exterior firmly intact. “But I will not.”

“Why the hell not?” Seb growled. “If you don’t tell them, I will.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” William snapped. “It’ll be your word against ours.”

“Ours?”

“Yes, ours,” William retorted.

“What? You and your political playmates? Dad, you don’t scare me!”

“Look at the facts, boy! You witnessed signatures that were already there. You should have checked. That’s your job. But that has always been your trouble. You never attend to the detail. Even as a child you were sloppy.” William chose his words well, each designed to unnerve and distract sufficiently to manipulate the blame from himself to his son who, he was right, should have checked.

“Don’t call me ‘boy’!” Seb spat, furious because he knew his father had him on one single point. The fact that he trusted his own flesh and blood would be neither a sufficient nor reliable defence. If anything it worked against him and he knew it. “They’ll take away our licence, you do know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, don’t be so bloody melodramatic. We’ll make sure it won’t come to that. I’ll see to it personally.”

“They’ll rescind their loan offer, they won’t give you a penny.”

“Poppycock. You’ve as good as said yourself it might not even come to that.”

“You think you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you?” Seb laughed. “You’ve actually thought this through, haven’t you?”

“Look,” William told him, changing his tone to one of reasonable assurance, “there’s no reason for them to call in the guarantees, so they’re unlikely to do anything too severe. The project is going well – yes, it’s a risky one, but we’ve already got an enquiry book full of interested tenants. It’ll earn a reasonable profit, it really will. So this is nothing more than a technicality, a blip. We’ll say it was an oversight. No harm done.” He spoke like it was already all wrapped up neatly. “You’ve seen what the regulator has done to the banks for much worse. Nothing, that’s what.” He laughed. “You’ve nothing to worry about. You’ll be reprimanded, a proverbial slap on the wrist, nothing more.”

Utterly flabbergasted, Seb almost choked on the breath catching in the back of his throat which felt like it was closing fast. He wasn’t sure what to be most amazed at: his father’s total lack of shame or his willingness to throw both himself and Enya under the bus.

“Do you seriously think that I’ll let you do this?” he said. “Aren’t you at least expecting me to defend myself? Or do you think I’ll just roll over and let you, of all people, destroy everything I’ve built? What do you take me for? How weak do you think I am? And what about Dermot? He’ll never let this one fly. Not a hope in hell.” Unable to control the crack in his voice he found himself shaking. “Am I that useless?” he blared. “And Enya? What about her? Does she not matter? Are we both that worthless to you?”

William in response simply shrugged carelessly and in that single, simple action, without uttering one word, he managed to ignite every trigger in his eldest son’s body. Seb’s fists closed, his knuckles white and his neatly trimmed nails cutting into his palms. He was primed and ready to launch at his father.

He rarely lost his cool completely but when he did it tended to be cataclysmic, as Kathryn would vouch. The shameful memory of his hand hitting hard against her skin told him he should calm down.

Needing to put space between him and his father he turned and walked back to the fire, sat into one of the armchairs and rested his head in his hands. The temperature off the smouldering coals felt hot on his already burning skin which was fuelled by the adrenaline that pumped harder and faster than if he’d run a marathon. He could feel the pulse throb in his neck.

“Tell me,” he said once his fury subsided to a manageable level, “did you imagine your reputation would carry you above the law? Was that it? Was that what you were depending on?” He looked up to see if his father showed any signs of offering any insights but William remained silent, with eyes full of irritation at his naive son. “And, to be honest, it doesn’t matter whether or not the regulator does anything or not. Our clients will know. Our business relies on trust.
Trust.
Do you even know what that means?”

But William remained mute. Uncaring. Fed up of his son’s performance.

“It won’t matter a damn if they take our licence or not. Our reputation will be shot!” Seb threw his arms open. “Everything I’ve worked for all these years gone because you are nothing but a corrupt, self-serving bastard! I trusted you. Like an absolute idiot, I assumed you were an honest man. How wrong I was! You’re all the same, you politicians. Shame on you all.”

He got up, and walked to the door. He had more than he could stomach and needed to figure out what had to be done to manage the threat.

“You should have checked,” William twittered to his back, rubbing it in, his trump card that would protect him above all else.

In his mind’s eye Seb could see him shake his head like he used to when they were kids. It galled him then just as it galled him now. Turning, he paced back into the room.

“I should have checked? And what good would that have done? It was in your plan that I wouldn’t. You planned to abuse my trust of you. If I’d checked you’d have found some other way to cheat. Wouldn’t you? ‘
You should have checked
’!” he mimicked with a theatrical shake of his head.

William smirked at his son, assuming the higher ground by remaining silent.

“Is that it?” Seb roared. “Are you
seriously
laughing at me?” His face contorted reflecting the ferocity of his anger.

Instinctively William took a step backward.

“You connive to ruin my reputation and then you have the audacity to mock me.” The relief he felt through his verbal tirade was immense. “And you’re a disgrace to your office, to your profession –” he inched closer to his father, his index finger raised, to finish finally with “to this family.”

“Control yourself, Sebastian,” William shouted, “and for God’s sake put down that finger!”

“You’ve got to be joking? Control myself? For as long as I can remember you’ve controlled me, us, all of us. Well, not anymore. Today is the beginning of the end for you and me. You are dead to me.” His pointed finger pushed hard against the embroidered crest on his father’s jumper.

Backed up against the desk William had nowhere to go. His face furrowed at the brow, his mouth opened and the colour began to drain from his cheeks. Taking pleasure from the visible signs, finally, of fear, Seb pushed his finger in harder.

“Yes, I should have checked and no, I should not have trusted you. But I will not let you ruin me. I will fight back with every ounce of my being and promise you here and now you will not beat me. Not now, not ever again.” His words felt good, liberating. “What have you got to say to that?”

William’s hand covered his chest in what Seb initially assumed was a defensive gesture, but it was impossible not to notice the cool grey pallor that was washing over his face. Retreating, Seb almost felt sorry for his father who appeared to shrink in front of his very eyes and, shaking his head, he accepted he was done and turned to leave.

“
Seb
. . .” he heard his father whisper.

Shame? Remorse? What was the tone he registered in that voice? But it was too late. The damage was done and, turning with the intention of telling his father so, he was surprised to see fear in his father’s face. It felt beautiful. William’s shoulders had slumped with one hand clutching the edge of the desk and the other now gripping his chest.

“Seb, my pills,” he murmured, almost inaudible but just loud enough to hear, his knuckles white for the effort it took to keep himself upright.

Seb took a moment to take stock.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“My jacket.” William pointed to the other side of the desk. “On the chair.”

Slowly Seb moved back into the room then stopped, his father looking up at him, his eyes pleading. Oh, how the tables had turned!

“Hurry,” William rasped, his body faltering before he fell to his knees.

Considering him for a moment, not so fearsome now, Seb debated silently without taking his eyes off his father’s shrinking presence. Then, he walked calmly out of the room, careful not to slam the door as he left, and into the hall where he stood to catch his galloping breath.

“Mother!” he called half-heartedly into the darkness. “Father needs you!” Then, without waiting to see if she answered he walked out of the house, down the beautiful granite steps, got into his car and left.

Chapter 15

Barbara was unusually sober, just about, for that time of day. Only because an extra tiny blue pill had made her afternoon nap that little bit longer. The sound of raised voices earlier had aroused both her body and her curiosity. Was it real or had she dreamed it? The sound of the front door banging encouraged the wide opening of her heavy eyes. Perhaps Will had gone out, leaving the downstairs free for her to roam. These days she tended to spend her time alone in her room in a drunken haze, bored by her own company but equally disinterested in the company of others.

She stepped out onto the landing in her nightgown and listened. The sound of silence was delicious. In her bare feet with glass in hand she wandered down the stairs. A loud crash from the study made her jump.

“William?” she called into the silence.

Slowly she made her way across the hall to the closed study door. Cautiously, like it might burn, she placed her hand on the brass doorknob, turned it and pushed open the door. The apparent emptiness of the room both greeted and unnerved her. It looked but didn’t feel empty. She took a step further into the room and called out again.

“William?”

A harsh rasping sound, like a cat’s defensive hiss came from the other side of the room. Quietly she put her glass down on the table by the door and picked up a heavy plaster statuette. It was heavy to hold but she hardly noticed, focusing on the possibility of an animal lurking somewhere in the room. Raising the weapon as she walked, trying her best not to bump into the various pieces of furniture that cluttered her way, she ventured across the room.

She saw his feet first, protruding out into her line of sight. Putting down the statuette, she rushed to him. He lay on the floor, his eyes furrowed and closed, his hand clutched desperately to his chest. Beside him was the source of the crash – a smashed table lamp – she wasn’t sure if he’d knocked it over when he fell or pulled it down on top of himself as he tried to get back up. She didn’t even know if he was alive or dead. She couldn’t see his chest move and when she bent over him not a breath, or so she thought, passed his lips. Helpless, she stood up. She didn’t know how to resuscitate and even if she did know how she didn’t have the wits to do it. With no idea what else to do she picked up the phone from the desk and dialled 911.