Blood And Water (39 page)
Authors: Siobhain Bunni
Tags: #Mystery, #Contemporary Fiction, #Mystery Thriller & Suspense, #Poolbeg Press, #Murder Death, #Crime, #Gillian Flynn, #Suspense, #Bestselling author of dark mirrors, #Classics, #Women's Fiction
Focusing his mind on the task that still lay ahead, he told himself: it needs to look like someone else did this. Like they were looking for something. Building the motive into the scene, he took the keys to the safe from William’s belt and made his way to the study and began the systematic disruption of an ordinarily untidy but organised personal workspace. Ignoring his conscience which tried to remind him of what he had just done, he felt an extraordinary, almost exhilarating delight as he wiped the desk clear of its belongings and imagined his father standing in front of him watching.
“The pleasure is all mine
,” he whispered to the vision in the empty room.
The chime of the grandfather clock in the hall brought him rudely back to his mission. Sitting down in the chair in front of the desk he yanked at the middle drawer and, realising it was locked, plucked the ring of keys from his pocket. But thinking twice, he picked up the letter opener from the floor and drove it hard into the lock. He pushed with all his might until the timber splintered, shattering a little further when the drawer hit the ground. Not even remotely interested in its contents he got up from the chair and stepped over the clutter to walk in the direction of the recessed cupboard. Pulling the doors open, he cast the contents carelessly aside with some spilling out on to the floor, Seb didn’t stop till the safe was fully revealed. This was the mystical item of their youth. As old as the house, or so they were told, Seb remembered the fascination of it as a child and his endless imaginings of all sorts of fantastical reasons why the house was built with it at all.
Taking the key from the ring he placed its long thin stem into the hole, turned it and heaved open the heavy cast-iron door. Leaning in he peered into the darkness. There were the usual and expected things inside, jewellery, passports and the like, which he paid no heed to. He was more interested in the bundle of documents on the top shelf. Pulling them out he sat on the floor to see what he had found.
There was something inside for each of them, a reward or consolation prize of sorts he thought mordantly as he opened each of the files. Ciara’s original but never-filed birth certificate; Martha’s fact file as compiled by McDaid; a letter from Father Sullivan addressed to Rian, an apology, it seemed, crafted from his death bed four years ago; and finally the deeds of Tanglewood for Enya. But for Cormac was the unintended and definitely most hilarious prize of all. In an unassuming white envelope with William’s name typed formally on it was a bundle of 10 x 8 colour prints. Seb instinctively knew what they were before he’d even extracted the first picture.
Oh good God
, he asked himself almost hysterically.
Is that Judy Hayes? Cormac, the little shit, is going to love this one!
He chuckled, flicking through the intimate pictures. Judy Hayes was the ultimate hustler, everyone knew that, he scoffed, disappointed more by his father’s choice of woman than his act of indiscretion. She’d been around forever and for everyone, it seemed. So, it was like father like son, Seb decided, putting the photographs back into the envelope and wondering who had taken them and how much William had paid to keep it quiet. How disappointing.
Seb knew that collectively these individual files would become William Bertram’s legacy to each of them. They were the score-settlers that would set about putting their lives on track and filing away their past.
And for himself, his own prize was at the bottom of the pile. Underneath the rest was the file he had been looking for, the file that would help him put things right. With
Ronson Street
written on its face he didn’t need to look inside there – he knew that somewhere within the sheaves of multicoloured papers he would find the evidence needed to properly put right what his father had put wrong.
“Jesus, Seb!” Enya exclaimed, coming into the room. “What on earth have you done?”
“I have created a story,” he stated calmly. “That’s what I’ve done.”
He stood to survey the room and, satisfied he’d done a good job, fixed his T-shirt over his tracksuit bottoms and, gathering up the files, left the study to head back to the hall and the little cubby under the stairs. Taking a rucksack off a hook he put the files from the safe into it and dropped the bag at the bottom of the stairs. Then making his way to the kitchen and out to the utility room with Enya on his heels he wrapped a towel around his fist and punched the window hard from the outside in, unlocked the window and carefully distributed the glass to look like someone had climbed through. With the scene set he left the way he came with instructions for Enya to wait a full hour before calling him first and the police after.
When she woke and came downstairs Barbara had been confused by what she saw. Supported by Enya who told her to say nothing, at first she actually thought she’d done it. There was no other explanation. And as the police asked question after question she was asking herself the same thing:
What happened here?
It was much later sitting around Ciara’s kitchen table that Seb handed each of them their respective file and explained what he had done, leaving out his role in certifying their father’s death. With minute precision together they agreed on their story, keeping it as close to reality as possible, ensuring the least amount of error.
Seb knew Milford didn’t believe them, he knew he would always be looking over his shoulder waiting for the day when he or some other overeager investigator would come knocking on his door looking to know what happened or worse still having figured out what happened. But, Seb had already decided, it was a better life to lead than the one decided and dictated by a man with only his own self-serving interests at heart.
Toasting the bride and groom, Seb took the remains of his whisky in one go and got up to leave the party, a very guilty but equally content man.
THE END
Also by Siobhain Bunni
Esmée Myers, once an impassioned woman, is living a life where her only excitement is the laundry and the children. Her relationship with her husband leaves a lot to be desired, but she is content to focus on providing emotional stability and security for her two young children.
For her husband, Philip, she is no more than a housekeeper, childminder and cleaner, easy to betray but not so easy to fool . . .
When Esmée becomes convinced that Philip is having an affair, she secretly plans to leave him and set up a new home with the children. Finally making the break, she feels she can look forward to a bright and fulfilling future.
Then Philip disappears without trace, leaving only his car standing on a clifftop. Though no body is found, the police deduce he has committed suicide. Esmée, however, thinks otherwise.
What begins as a carefully planned escape from a maudlin and tedious relationship descends into something much darker as layer by layer Esmée strips back the last ten years of her life with a man it turns out she never really knew.
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