Just Business (19 page)

Helen had rearranged Phil's office. Her pictures were on the wall, her name on the door. She sat behind the large desk wearing a tailored suit, a grey skirt with a fitted jacket. It was part of her new executive wardrobe.

She picked up her phone and made a call.

‘Keith, it's Helen Barnes.'

‘Hello, Helen.' He sounded surprised. It had been a few years.

‘I want you to do some checking for me.'

‘What kind of checking?'

Helen hesitated and asked herself again if she was doing the right thing. She was running the risk of upsetting any number of people: Niamh, Malcolm, Yoshi, not to mention Lucinda. Was she justified in going behind their backs?

She took a deep breath. ‘It's one of our executives … obviously
very
sensitive … Can we meet somewhere discreet?'

He suggested a bar on the other side of town. She hung up
and found that her hands were shaking. But there was no turning back now.

Bruce inhaled a cigarette outside AIZ's North Sydney premises. Willem Boelhoers stood silently beside him, waiting for him to finish. They were both ill at ease, only too aware that the upcoming meeting and the all-important contract renewal could swing in any direction.

Martin Fitzgerald, the bank's head of IT, was remarkably young for his role, but unquestionably capable. Bruce knew him well but it was Willem who had the day-to-day relationship.

‘We're very close to finalising our pricing,' Bruce said when the introductory small talk was over.

‘Closing date is Friday,' Martin warned, a teasing glint in his eye.

‘We'll get it to you at four fifty-five,' Willem grinned, ‘just in time for you to read before the weekend.'

Bruce took an unsteady breath that was as much to do with his nicotine habit as his nerves. ‘Martin, you know me, I don't beat around the bush … We want to keep your business and we're trying to give you the best possible price. We can move the price down further if you commit to give your time and materials business exclusively to us.'

Martin's face closed up and he assumed the bland expression of a negotiator. ‘We already have a contract with another party covering our T&M.'

Willem left a respectful pause before saying, ‘We can drop our prices by five per cent if you contract it with us.'

‘That's a very lucrative offer,' Martin acknowledged. ‘However, we like to have more than one IT service provider. It keeps
them on their toes, makes sure they
both
give us the best possible service and price.'

‘We work best when we have an exclusive arrangement with our client,' said Bruce. ‘We like to give an end-to-end solution, including time and materials. As the infrastructure is already in place, I can push the discount to ten per cent – but that's my final offer.'

Martin adjusted his tie. ‘I need time to absorb this offer and the consequences it has for the bank.' His tone indicated he didn't want to discuss the matter any further.

‘What numbers do you want to see on Friday?' Willem asked. ‘Including or excluding T&M?'

‘Send me both,' Martin responded, not willing to give anything away.

‘Okay, will do.' Willem glanced at Bruce before saying, ‘Just one more thing, Martin … We need to visit the computer room before we go … we have some work to do there. Can you let us in?'

Martin looked puzzled. Bruce and Willem were senior management and didn't usually muck around in computer rooms. That sort of work was left to the junior engineers.

‘One of our engineers is giving cause for concern and we want to check over a job he did here a few days ago,' Bruce said by way of explanation. He was trying to be as open as possible without unduly alarming his client. This conversation would be analysed over and over again if it transpired that Denis Greene had inflicted some damage on the bank's hardware or software.

Martin frowned and Bruce and Willem inwardly flinched. ‘That's not good,' he said.

‘Obviously we'll give you a full briefing if we find anything,' promised Bruce.

Martin was still frowning. ‘We had an issue with a back-up tape last week. We recalled it from storage but it didn't hold any data. It was blank.'

‘That sounds like a mistake, human error.' Willem was reassuring. ‘One of your staff must have sent the wrong tape to storage.'

‘Let's hope it was a mistake and nothing to do with your engineer,' Martin replied darkly and the meeting ended. It wasn't on a good note.

Martin walked them to the bank's basement, the home of the computer room. He punched out his access code on the keypad and pushed the heavy metal door inwards. ‘Let me know immediately if you find anything.'

Bruce nodded and a blast of cool airconditioning hit his face as he went inside. The computer room was a work of technological art. Miles and miles of cables connected the stacks of storage devices and the gleaming servers. White floors, walls and equipment blended together, the monitor screens adding the only colour to the room. ‘How many servers do they have in here?' he asked Willem.

‘Last time I counted it was forty. Then there's the mainframe as well.'

‘We'll be here for hours.'

Bruce had started off many years ago as an engineer but had spent the last fifteen years in senior management. His skills were too dated for today's technology and there was little he could do to help Willem. He looked on as the head engineer carefully checked all the hardware and software. Willem updated the virus files on the servers and ran the scans.

‘Okay, that's all the servers clear – now for the mainframe.'

He spent almost an hour looking for any changes to the system
made in the last seven days. Nothing unusual was revealed.

On their way out they passed by Martin Fitzgerald's office to let him know that all was in order. Once outside the bank, Bruce lit up and closed his eyes as he inhaled the smoke into his damaged lungs. He was reassured by Willem's checks but he couldn't get rid of the niggling feeling that all was not well. Denis Greene had a purpose when he illegitimately gained access to the bank's computer room. He hadn't gone in there just for the hell of it, that was for sure.

Niamh endured another weekend. Chris was gone for most of it, golf and the office. She went for a long walk, cleaned the house from top to bottom, and called around to her mother's on her own.

‘Is everything all right?' Monica asked tactfully when they were alone in the kitchen.

‘Yes,' Niamh assured her. ‘Just busy and tired.'

‘What about Chris?'

‘He's even more busy and tired.'

Niamh lit the candles on Tom's cake and carried it out to the garden. He was in his element, a twin on each knee. Monica limped heavily to his side, her legs thick and swollen, so much at odds with the sharp beauty of her face. She leaned down to kiss him on the lips. Niamh couldn't bear to look.

On the Monday morning she hurried past Sharon's perceptiveness to the shelter of her office. It was only when she shut the door behind her that she saw the blue envelope sitting ominously on her keyboard.

It brought her close to breaking point. Who was doing this? Tears started to well in her eyes as she dialled Sharon's extension.

‘Did you put a blue envelope on my desk?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where did it come from?'

‘It was in your pigeonhole this morning.'

There was nothing else to say. She opened the envelope.

 

 

It was a straight question and the answer was that she didn't. It was very obvious now that something had happened at the Christmas party. Chris had been with someone else. He had been gone for over an hour. It had to be Lucinda, all the other evidence stacked up. How could he humiliate her like that? She started to cry in earnest.

The phone rang and if she had been thinking straight she wouldn't have picked it up. It was Sharon.

‘I have someone on the line who is looking for a reference on Scott Morgan.'

She pulled herself together to say, ‘Put them through.' She had been waiting for the call since the day in the park. She would do the reference, then plead sick and go home.

She spent the next fifteen minutes talking to the recruitment agent whose name she didn't catch. She gave Scott a glowing report and when she hung up she knew he had a very good chance of being shortlisted. Her tears had dried on her face. She was feeling a hollow kind of calm and decided to stay in the office after all, realising there was no point going home to an empty house.

She read some emails, answered the ones that were easy, ate something for lunch, and somehow got through the day. At home she roamed the kitchen doing trivial chores as she waited
for Chris. It was after eight when she heard the garage door open, a few more seconds before the car door slammed and he came inside, juggling his briefcase and a massive lever-arch folder.

‘You look as if you've been waiting for me,' he said when he saw that the TV wasn't on. Niamh always turned it on as soon as she came in from work, the noise making her feel she wasn't alone in the house.

‘I was.'

‘You should know better,' he laughed as he slid the file onto the benchtop and rested the briefcase on the floor. He didn't stop to see her sombre expression before he sat on the sofa, loosening his tie. She left the kitchen to sit next to him.

‘Well, what's so important that the TV is switched off?'

His hair was freshly cut, making his face stronger, more handsome. She had a moment of detached admiration before plunging in. ‘I want to know what happened at the Christmas party.'

‘For God's sake, not again!' He rolled his eyes to heaven.

‘I know you were with someone.' An outrageous accusation was the only way to get to the truth. He would get angry and if there was anything there it would come out. She waited for his reaction. There was certainly shock on his face; was there guilt too?

‘I'm sorry.'

An instantaneous confession was not what she was expecting. After weeks of feeling numb there was a sudden sharp hurt.

‘You had …
sex
…'

‘No, it was just a kiss.'

‘Who? Who was it?'

‘Does it matter?' he countered with a sigh.

‘Of course it does.' She raised her voice to demand, ‘Who?'

He hesitated and then his eyes met hers squarely. ‘I'm not going to tell you. It doesn't serve any purpose.'

‘It's Lucinda, isn't it? You were talking to her when I found you.'

‘I'm not going to take part in a guessing game,' he replied adamantly.

‘I
know
it's Lucinda – you've seen her in Forbes, haven't you? And I bet you were with her on Christmas Eve too.'

‘What?' His face twisted with a frown. ‘Where are you pulling all of this from? It's not Lucinda, okay?'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘Well, that's your problem.'

‘How long has it been going on?'

‘It hasn't been “going on”! It was just the Christmas party, that's all. I got talking to this woman on the way …' He must have realised how tacky it sounded and didn't finish the sentence.

It was too humiliating to contemplate. Her husband was the kind of man who groped other women on his way to the gents'.

‘Have there been others?' she asked urgently, even though she already knew what the answer would be.

‘Yes … Look, Niamh, I was never like this until we got married … Now women are like an addiction, the more forbidden the fruit and all that … You know, I'm glad this has come out.'

‘You are?' She stood up. She needed the protection of distance, the distraction of pacing. Her husband was admitting to being some kind of sex junkie, someone who was obsessed with women. No better than Phil Davis.

‘Yes, it's obvious I'm not marriage material – it brings out the worst in me. It seems I want every woman but my wife.'

It all made an ironic kind of sense. He didn't touch or make love to her because he was turned off by the fact they were married and it was boringly legitimate. Her voice flat, she said, ‘So what now? Are we going to get a divorce?'

‘I think that's the right thing to do,' he replied with an odd sincerity. ‘We both deserve happiness, and if that's not possible together, I think it's best that we go our separate ways.'

‘
You
think it's best –
I'm
the one who brought this up, who found you out. What would have happened if I hadn't confronted you?'

Again, he seemed to be sincere when he said, ‘I've been waiting for you to bring it up – to break us up – I didn't want to be the one –'

‘
What?
' She turned on him, incredulous at what he was suggesting.

‘Well, with your family history, I didn't want to do the leaving. I wanted you to be the one to suggest divorce.'

‘How
fucking
noble of you!' she screamed at him. ‘What were you afraid of? That I'd top myself like my dad?'

‘Yes.'

She was still standing, he sitting. Their eyes locked. There was no going back. This was it, it was over.

She wanted to scream some more, to slap him, to hurt him, but she had no strength. ‘Was our time together a total write-off? Haven't there been any good times for you?'

He considered her question for a few moments before replying, ‘I'd say there haven't been any
bad
times … it just hasn't felt right.'

‘Oh, I'm
terribly sorry
!'

‘So am I. You're a good person, Niamh – you just married the wrong man. And I think you've known it for some time
too. You would have called it off ages ago if it wasn't for your mother and father.'

He was right. God, he was so right.