Blood And Water (7 page)

“Thanks, Dermot,” Seb replied, appreciating the offer as a gesture of his business partner’s support – support which didn’t need to be expressed. There was an implicit trust between them that was solid. As soon as Seb shook Tim’s hand after their lunch, instinctively he called Dermot. This was the first event to truly test the strength of that trust and so far, thankfully, it was proving sound. “I’m planning to head over there this afternoon and see what he has to say.”

“Grand,” Dermot responded with a nod. “Well, let me know how you get on,” and with another, more enthusiastic nod this time, he turned to go, only to change his mind and turn back into the room. “You know, Seb,” he said, “you’re much bigger and smarter than this. It’ll come right. Believe me.” And, with that he left the room, closing the door behind him.

One of the things that Seb liked about Dermot was that he didn’t waste his words so, whatever the sentiment of those he did say, he meant it. On this occasion, Seb wasn’t sure that Dermot’s prediction was right. But yes, he was bigger than this. He just needed to keep a level head and be prepared for his father’s reaction. Seb wondered if William would admit what he had done. Unlikely, Seb guessed, remembering how compliant William had been when first told about the bank’s demands for guarantees from all three of the company directors.

He had met them in his father’s private office in Government Buildings. They were all there, all four of them like overexcited pups eager to get the project moving. Seb had assumed their edginess was because they were afraid they’d lose the property; he had, after all, negotiated a really good price on it.

“Alright, so I’ve met with the bank and they’re happy to approve the loan in principal but ...” he cautioned, handing to each a form, “they want individual personal guarantees from all of you.”

In Seb’s eyes, this changed the deal considerably. Now the risks were greater, now they weren’t protected by their company. Should anything go wrong they would be personally responsible to the bank for this debt. Seb had anticipated a barrage of questions. It was a huge risk and he would have understood if at least one of them walked away completely. But there were no questions. Each of them looked up at him wide-eyed as he stood at the top of the meeting table.

“No questions? Are you clear you know what this means?” he asked. And when they mumbled and shook their heads he offered them his unsolicited but professional opinion. “Okay, well, as your advisor I have to ask that you consider the risk. Think about the consequences to each of you if it fails. Imagine it has failed. Do you think you could cope with this debt? Only sign these forms if you’re happy you can.”

There and then he should have smelled the rat. And if he didn’t smell it then he was given another opportunity a week later when his father had barged into his office with steam in his turbine.

“You need to sign these,” William had thundered, slamming the guarantee forms on the desk in front of his son who up until that point was in the final throes of preparing for a client meeting.

Irritated but not alarmed by his father’s abrupt entry, Seb told him firmly, “You can’t just come barging in here like that,” then looked at the forms. “These can wait.”

“Here, here, here and here,” his father fired back, ignoring Seb’s comments while pointing at the Xs marked on each page.

“I know that but I’m telling you they can wait, and anyway they’re already signed.” Seb looked up at his father’s six-foot-four frame looming large over him.

“Mr. Bertram, they’re ready and waiting in the board room,” Lucy interrupted them from the door.

“Thanks, Lucy. I’m on my way.”

“I know that,” William replied impatiently. “I had them signed, you need to witness them. They’re for the bank guarantee.”

“I can’t do that, Dad – you know that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know who they are, you know who we are,” he boomed, pointing at the forms signed by himself and his three Ronson Street partners. “I was there, I can stand over them – isn’t that enough?”

“Look, Dad, I don’t have time for this now. I’m about to go into a meeting – I’ll call over on the way home – we can discuss it then.”

“Discuss it? What’s to discuss? You sign here, here, here and here and we’re done. You can do that, can’t you?” he said in his usual patronising tone.

“No, Dad, not really,” Seb replied with controlled calm while pulling on his jacket and gathering up the small heap of files from his desk.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, man, what are you saying? Do you not trust me?”

“I never said that, but the whole point of witnessing someone else’s signature is that you actually
see
them do it. And I didn’t.”

“But
I
did.”

“Well, you sign them then.”

“Don’t be facetious, Sebastian, it doesn’t become you. Just sign the damn documents.”

A heavy knock on the frame of the open door made them both turn.

“We’re waiting for you,” Dermot told Seb, looking pointedly at William Bertram.

“Jesus Christ, Sebastian, I’m not going back to them again. I signed them. They’re real. What more do you need to know?”

“Seb?” Dermot prompted from the door.

“Oh, for God’s Sake,” Seb hissed, “give them to me!” and, leaning over, signed each of them in his characteristically swift but distinctive scrawl.

“That wasn’t so difficult, now was it?” his father taunted as Seb quickly left the room, his fury silent but evident in his passing glance.

Thinking back on it now, it didn’t seem implausible that his father had timed it well and on purpose, knowing that at that point he would have signed anything just to get him out of his hair.

“What a bloody disaster,” he stated aloud, inspecting the documents again. He closed his eyes and shook his head. It was rare for him to feel emotional but this was an unusual circumstance: this was the ultimate betrayal of trust and entirely his own fault. Although on the one hand he hoped his father had a reasonable explanation, he knew on the other that it was unlikely. With a heavy heart and a rising sense of anger, he gathered up the documents, reassembled the file and began to consider his options. It would be a long afternoon.

The vibration of his phone made him jump. He looked, more from curiosity than the intention to answer it, until he saw who it was. A client as well as a sibling – he had to take it.

“Enya,” he said as cheerfully as he could. “How are you?”

“Grand,” she replied. “That was some show Dad put on yesterday, wasn’t it?”

“Yep, it sure was,” he sighed. He hadn’t really got a chance to talk properly to her over lunch – with so much else going on around him he didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with her too.

“He’s going to have to stop with the jibes though,” she told him, “especially now that I’ve decided to hang around.”

Seb had been expecting her to stay, and was quietly pleased for her.

“I’m really glad to hear it,” he replied. “Really, it’s time to stop running.”

“I know,” she sighed, “and, well, with the divorce coming through it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?”

The pause in her breathing didn’t go unnoticed by Seb and despite her obvious trepidation he launched at her anyway.

“And what about this fellow Joe?” he asked, unable to contain himself and without trying to conceal his tone of disapproval. “Is it serious?”

“Joe …” she repeated his name with a tint of regret. “Joe has gone on without me.”

“Good, it’s for the best,” he said, without even a hint of pity. “He wasn’t your type really, was he?”

“How could you tell?” she retorted good-naturedly. “You only met him for a split second.”

“Good God, Enya, seriously, I always thought you had taste, but he, well, he was a bit rough, wasn’t he?” He was glad to hear her laugh at the other end of the phone – he didn’t intend to upset her. “I mean,” he ventured, trying out his dry wit on her, “even you can do better than that.” Then switching back to a more serious topic, he warned, “Look, don’t mind Dad, I’ll deal with him. There’s no point rocking that boat unless you absolutely have to. Let me have a word with him. Okay? I’m heading over to see him later.”

“Sure,” she replied. “Anyway, now that I’ve made one decision, I really need to think about what to with the house and everything. I could do with some advice …” She let her sentence hang, ready for him to pick it up, which he did with remarkable and uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

“Advice? Of course. Yes, sure. Look, why don’t I call you in the morning?”

“Thanks, Seb, I appreciate it.”

“And, Sis,” he finished, “don’t worry about Dad, okay?”

“Okay … talk to you tomorrow so,” she replied slowly.

He ended the call with a deep sigh, bracing himself for what he had still to do.

Chapter 7

How bizarre, she reflected, placing the phone back in its cradle, baffled by her oldest brother’s responses. What on earth’s up with him?

She was so accustomed to her brother’s poor manners that to experience his unusual empathy was disconcerting to say the least.

Despite his gruff and sometimes inexcusable attitude, she loved her eldest brother and trusted him implicitly. And even though they hadn’t been terribly close
–
Seb didn’t do ‘close’ – he had been there for her when she needed him and for that, if nothing else, he had earned her respect.

The house was perfectly peaceful without Ciara buzzing round. She and Robert had done an amazing job restoring it from the ruins of its former and neglected years. An old gate lodge set into the shadows of the imposing oak trees on the eastern peripheries of a fine old manor house, it had long been a forgotten and tarnished jewel in its original owner’s crown. Although beautiful, refurbished as a home with all the comforts of a five-star retreat – and she would never admit this openly to Ciara – it wasn’t really Enya’s preference. She could never cope with its isolation so far away from the city. Today, however, in the aftermath of her relationship break-up and her decision to stay, she was enjoying its comforting seclusion. She poured herself the last of the coffee and sipped it, savouring the silence while exploring the gallery of family photographs that lined the walls and decorated the various table-tops around the bright, open-plan living space. There was no doubt that despite their differences the Bertrams were a handsome group, she noted proudly, meandering from one image to the next, smiling with each memory the trail of pictures evoked. But only one picture, set into a beautiful but plain silver frame, stopped her dead in a sunlit corner of the room.

She peeped out from the photograph. Her baby girl. The abrupt and unexpected recall of those perky pigtails as she posed innocently in her party dress made Enya’s heart race. Instinctively she clutched at her chest, grasping the pain that tore through it. That dress: it had been her favourite with its blue frill around the collar that matched the sapphire blue of her eyes. Enya tried to complete the dynamic memory of that moment timelessly caught in that single photo. The smell of the three candles that danced on her princess cake, the shrieks of delight as she opened her presents and her feather weight as she eventually slept in Enya’s arms, exhausted from the excitement of the day. Picking up the picture as if holding it in her hand would bring that moment back to life, she closed her eyes to again feel those beautiful pigtails and the soft caress of her baby’s breath against her cheek as she snored through the rest of the afternoon safe in the arms of her mother.

There wasn’t a day that passed when she didn’t think of her beautiful daughter Lia. But it was so long since she had looked at a physical image of that perfect little face, seeing it now, so surprising, so beautiful, there was no stopping the tears that fell freely down her cheeks. She didn’t even try.

After Lia died, in the height of the drama, she had spat furiously at her father, “This is all your fault!” and, while in her heart she knew there wasn’t a grain of truth in it, still she had continued to shriek, urgently needing someone to blame, “I only went with him because you forbade me to! And now look. Now look where I’m at!”

That was true: her father had forbidden her to see Cathal O’Neill.

They first met at a fundraiser for one of her father’s earlier political campaigns which Cathal had attended with the sole intention of inciting William. A member of the opposition and running in the same constituency, at the time Cathal was considered the front runner, a young whippersnapper, biting at the heels of the established set and branded as the one who might just usurp the esteemed, deep-rooted and old-style William Bertram from his seat. Working the room, Cathal spied a very bored-looking Enya and when she took a seat at one of the tables he deviously seized the opportunity to antagonise his already piqued rival by making a beeline for the vacant seat right beside her.

Just as the introductions were underway William approached the table.

“Apologies, ladies, gentlemen,” he nodded to the group, making sure there was no eye contact with Cathal, “may I be so rude as to steal my daughter away for just one minute?”

Enya felt embarrassed by the fact that he had addressed this request to the guests rather than her, as if she had no say in the matter. Indeed, it was less a request than a demand which left her little option but to smile politely and go with him.

“What is it, Dad?” she asked, aware that they were being covertly watched by the table of intrigued guests.

Already antagonised, she met his command that she move tables with a rebellious “Absolutely not”.

“You do realise, don’t you,” William informed her cruelly, “that he’s only sitting beside you to get at me?”

Enya looked at her father then back at the offending guest who was gleefully aware of the reaction his move had prompted.

“Is that so?” she replied.

“Yes, so find somewhere else to sit,” he commanded with the weight of his authority evident in his voice, moving her along, expecting her to acquiesce.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dad,” she replied with a smirk. “He’s harmless.”