Blood And Water (6 page)

And Robert’s mother didn’t like her very much either. At one of their very first and few encounters she openly informed Ciara that Robert was a soft and gentle soul who always had some sick bird with broken wings to tend to, concluding with an acerbic smile that it appeared she was latest in a long list of ailing birds so not to get too comfortable. In a way she was right: Robert was a sympathetic sort always looking to fix things and people. And while there may previously have been a long line of sick birds with broken wings, Ciara was the last one he ever took home. In his heart he wanted to give flight back to those wings and mend her forever. And he almost had.

Enya put her mug down and traced her finger around the rim. “I’ll miss Joe,” she said as much to herself as to Ciara and, looking up, grinned weakly. “Thanks, Sis.”

“No problem. It’s nice to be able to be there for you for a change. You’d do the same for me. Correction – you
do
the same for me all the time.”

“Not recently I haven’t,” Enya replied quietly.

“Well, you had your own stuff to deal with.”

Enya huffed and let flashes of the two years past taunt her. “Well, I’m here now,” she stated, pushing the memories aside firmly, sitting up in her chair and focusing on her sister. “Sorry it’s taken so long.”

“Good to have you back!” Ciara told her with a smile.

“Well, enough about me!” Enya replied with a lift in her voice. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Ciara responded but the light in her smile had gone out.

Seeing it go and knowing why, Enya probed gently, “And what about . . . ?”

Ciara responded with a slow shake of her head.

“Nothing?”

“It just didn’t work.”

“How many times did you try?”

“Three,” Ciara replied with tears in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” Enya sighed, taking hold of Ciara’s hand across the table.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have helped even if you were here.”

“But that’s exactly what I
am
sorry for,” Enya stressed. “I should have been there for you.”

“Robert was brilliant,” Ciara sniffed, tired of trying not to cry. “He’s so amazing.”

Enya dropped her head and suppressed a small hint of jealousy. She really was lucky. Robert was a great guy, and so good for her.

“Can’t you go again?” she asked.

“We just don’t have the money.”

“And what about Dad – surely he can afford it?”

“We did ask, but he said no.”

“
What!
” Enya shrieked. “He did what?”

“He said no,” Ciara confirmed with a sorry grin.

“You’re joking. What an asshole. Well, ask him again,” she told her decisively.

“No,” she said quietly. “Robert won’t do it again.”

“What about adoption?”

“Well, we’re approved, but it could be years, maybe never, before we might get chosen as parents.” Ciara lowered her shaking head. “We’d be great parents, Enya,” she sobbed. “Rob would have made an amazing dad.”

“He will,” Enya stressed. “He will make a great dad. You can’t give up hope. Not yet.”

“Seriously? At this stage there really is very, very little hope.”

“I’ll help you. I have some money. We can borrow the rest.”

“Stop,” Ciara replied holding up her hand, uncharacteristically calm. “We can’t. Robert has said no and I have to respect that. You can’t help. Not unless you want to have it for us.”

Enya’s head dropped and her face coloured wildly.

“I was only kidding!” Ciara laughed, amazed at her sister’s response. “You didn’t think I was serious, did you? No, you being here is the best help you can be. Just don’t run away again, okay?”

The sweet chime of the doorbell gave Enya the diversion she needed to change the subject, for the moment anyway.

“Expecting anyone?” she asked, looking at the clock on the wall.

“Nope, not that I can remember. Maybe it’s Joe coming back for you?” she teased before getting up and heading out to the hall.

In the kitchen Enya, relieved to be extracted from the moment, took a deep breath and put her head in her hands, unsure why she felt so bad.

“Hey, Rian!” she heard Ciara cry out. “What are you doing here? Are you not working today?”

“I thought I’d drop by to see how Enya’s doing after Dad’s performance yesterday.”

“Me?” Enya yelled out from the kitchen, hearing her brother’s remark. “You took a bit of an emotional battering yourself. In fact, I’m surprised you even noticed Enya – you hardly took your eyes off your fiancée all night!”

Ciara hauled him into the kitchen, positioned him at the table then stood back. It was like old times: the banter blossomed and took its own natural and unpredictable course. It was always the same: a little stilted at first but, slowly, as the effects of the copious amounts of tea and endless chatter began to bed in, the quick-fire joking was never long to follow. Yes, she was glad Enya was back if only for this moment. They were liquid gold: so rare, so beautiful, the laughter resonating so lyrically, the mood so buoyant, optimistic enough to combat even the heaviest of hearts. Unlike the forced Sunday gatherings, this felt real. It was real. They were here by choice, because they wanted to be, performance free, relaxed and enjoying themselves. This was the dream she had for her own children: that they might sit like this and laugh like they didn’t have a care in the world, with each other to look out for and care for. But it seemed the harder they tried, the less likely her dream would ever become a reality.

Chapter 6

“Morning, Mr. Bertram,” Lucy his receptionist welcomed Seb as he exited the lift on the 14
^th
floor of his building.

“Lucy,” he acknowledged without stopping.

From behind her elegantly illuminated glass desk she watched him go, expertly judging his mood by the speed of his legs and tone of his greeting. Today, she registered, wasn’t going to be a good day.

Lacking the humour to entertain small talk, Seb lengthened his stride to take him quickly out of conversation’s way. At a great pace he strode down the corridor past the mash-up of the old and new office interior. A refurbished grain store beside the canal, the building boasted beautiful red, gold and ochre brick walls slapped with flashes of ivory plaster where the new was forced to marry the old. Polished dark-timber floors, expansive glass partitions and low-level lighting created a warm but very masculine workplace. This was his realm, his space, and he was very proud of what he had achieved. On a normal day he liked to absorb the atmosphere while making the journey down the glazed corridors to his office. It was thrilling to witness the flurry of activity going on beyond the various glass walls: the meetings, the deals, the negotiations, all for the greater good of Bertram and Guilfoyle. Yes, he was a proud man, but today he was happy to charge past, unable to fathom the potential impact his current situation would have on the stability of this kingdom which he and Dermot Guilfoyle had built together.

The smell of furniture polish pleasantly assaulted his nostrils as he opened the door to his corner office. Fully glazed on two sides, it gave him a privileged view of the city. His city, he often titled it as he soaked up the light and the atmosphere of a country in the full swing of recovery. Closing the door with a cursory glance outside, he marched over to his desk, placed his briefcase on its top then pressed the intercom to Lucy.

“Yes, Mr. Bertram?”

“I’m expecting a package – can you bring it in as soon as it arrives, please.”

“Yes, Mr. Bertram.”

Tim had promised he’d get copies of the documents to him first thing and Seb really hoped he’d follow through. The last thing he needed was for this to drag on all day. From the shelf beside his desk, he pulled a thick black file with
Ronson Street
typed in bold along its spine and took it to the meeting table where he opened it out and, finding the section he was looking for, extracted six pages and placed them down, one by one, beside each other on the table. Even with the information Tim had given him the pages appeared innocuous, resting innocently on the table in front of him. How did the bank even pick up on it? He scanned the sheets. He would never have guessed there was anything wrong with any of them.

A gentle knock on the door interrupted his inspection.

“Yes?” he called out without moving from the table.

Lucy came in and handed him a large padded envelope. “This just arrived for you.”

“Thanks, Lucy.”

Good man, Tim, he thought, not the least bit concerned about what Tim had to do to get the documents to him.

“Would you mind getting me a coffee, Lucy?” he asked as she was closing the door. He would have liked something a bit stronger but, tempted though he was, he knew he needed to keep his wits about him and resisted the urge.

“Sure,” she replied with a smile then left him alone.

Opening up the package, he pulled out the individual bundles, each clipped together neatly at the top right-hand corner and a yellow sticky note placed beside the signatures on their respective first pages. Written in blue ink on each note were the words in block capitals
NOT VERIFIED
. The pages were the same as those in his own file.

The Ronson Street deal was the first and would be the last time he would do business with his father. Bertram and Guilfoyle had earned considerable recognition through the recession by engaging in high-risk but lucrative property deals on behalf of their clients. Their interest wasn’t in the properties themselves but in the high fees that the deals earned as the sites were bought and sold on. They were the middlemen who found the best deal and squeezed the margins so tight it made financial sense to have them on board.

When his father suggested that Bertram and Guilfoyle might be interested in getting involved in an apparently fantastic property deal, Seb entertained it more as a gesture to assist his father than as a serious business venture. William Bertram and three of his political cohorts had, they said, researched the market, come across a number of opportunities and now planned to invest in one of the last remaining derelict buildings on Ronson Street – an up-and-coming address in the city with a fast-developing almost celebrity status. Their intention was to buy the building, a relic of the recession, invest in its refurbishment and offer it to rent as a state-of-the-art office space and potential headquarter building. Once fully occupied, they would put it on the market as a high-profile signature building and make more money than their collective pensions would ever return on their retirement. It was, William Bertram described, a no-brainer. To Sebastian it was just another deal.

“A bank is unlikely to deal without the proper structures in place. You need to set up a limited company with the three of you as directors and equal shareholders – it’ll protect you personally if anything should go wrong,” he advised at one of their first meetings. The process was so simple it was foolproof, he thought. “The company will apply to the bank for the loan. They’ll want each of you to raise a combined half of the property value and then they’ll lend you the other half.”

He cringed as he remembered how he had spoken to them as if they were novices, like they were completely ignorant of the process. But now, looking at the signed pages in front of him, he realised they weren’t.

This was trouble. Since the economic collapse (what felt like aeons ago but in reality was only five torturous years) public and professional scrutiny was at an all-time high, nothing more so under the microscope than the behaviour of bankers and financiers. Even politicians didn’t escape investigation if warranted, regardless of position or power. The media had become the public’s unsympathetic watchdog, took no prisoners and like vigilantes loved nothing more than to delve into the belly of a story to expose its ugly truth. This was just the kind of thing they loved and as he was never media-shy they would love nothing more than to push him over then watch him fall.
Iron-willed. Hard-nosed. Tough. Bullish. Impervious. Aggressive.
They were the words often used to describe him, Sebastian Bertram. He was the one who dished out the whipping, not the other way around. He worked hard to protect his reputation, went the extra mile to make sure everything was above board and legitimate, so this injudiciousness, although not of his doing, would be like manna from heaven. He had managed hundreds of deals, some more challenging than others and some more contentious but, in all of his transactions, while getting what he wanted and being perhaps a little devious he was never, ever dishonest. His problem with this deal was all about being too trusting, a little naive and as a result more than completely stupid.

Lucy returned with his coffee and, seeing the sour look on her boss’s face, left without saying a word.

Holding the mug in his hand, Seb took it to the window to look pensively over his rejuvenated city, sipping but not tasting, looking but not seeing the extraordinary view below. Theirs was one of the tallest buildings in the district and on this side he had perfect sight of the picturesque if busy canal landscape and the fastest point on the rail line that skirted the building way below. Here the trains whizzed past at speed, a symbolic measure of Bertram & Guilfoyle Enterprises. Nothing annoyed him more than having their success described as lucky. There was nothing lucky about it. Both he and Guilfoyle worked damn hard at being successful and he didn’t plan on letting anything, never mind his father’s apparent stupidity and notable greed, destroy it.

There was a knock at the door and Dermot Guilfoyle popped his head around its edge.

“So how did it go?” he asked.

“I haven’t been yet,” Seb replied. “I’ve only just got my hands on the files.”

“Do you need me to do anything? Look over the papers for you?”

“No, you’re all right. I’ll do it. I’m embarrassed enough as it is,” Seb joked, but his laugh was only surface deep.

“If you’re sure. But you know where I am – second pair of eyes and all that.”