Better Together (46 page)

‘Wouldn’t that get classed as bullying in the workplace?’ asked Joe.

‘Look, if I’d taken a case for bullying, that would’ve been the end of my career,’ said Sheridan. ‘Besides, sometimes you have to be able to put up with a bit of it. Not constant, abusive stuff. But the kind that’s designed to make you either crack or be part of the team. It’s the way life is. And what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ She realised she was using one of Alice’s phrases.

‘In the end I had two pints and then they were playing pool and . . . well, I did that thing,’ she said.

‘What thing?’

‘The thing they do in all those gunslinging buddy-buddy movies,’ she told him. ‘The thing where you pretend to be shit at something and sucker them in and then they discover you’re really good at it. But too late because you’ve cleaned them out and taken the money.’

‘You hustled them?’ Joe sounded incredulous.

‘And how,’ she said, satisfaction in her voice. ‘Took every last one of them down. Pretended my first win was a fluke. Played a cannon to put the black into a corner pocket and did a girlish giggle and apologised. It looked totally accidental. All of the balls seemed just by chance. And so the next guy was convinced he’d hammer me. But I stayed ahead of them. They weren’t sure about me then. They were after the next game. I won it from the break.’

‘You demon,’ he said.

‘I know.’ She looked apologetic but her voice bubbled with merriment. ‘Anyway, there was no more crap from them after that.’

‘You weren’t exactly ruthless, though,’ said Joe. ‘You were just putting down a marker.’

‘I guess so,’ she said. ‘But I took them for a lot of money. And afterwards they respected me.’

‘You liked your job at the
City Scope
.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘Loved it,’ she said. ‘I was good at it. It made my parents proud.’

‘I’m sorry, about what happened.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘You blame my dad, though, don’t you?’

‘I certainly tried to blame him,’ she agreed. ‘It was convenient to make one person a focus for how angry and upset I was, especially since that person was an outsider, not someone I’d worked for or with. But I know it wasn’t specifically his decision.’

‘I wish I could change things for you.’

‘Like you did for Conall Brophy? Setting him up with a job?’

Joe looked a little embarrassed. ‘We needed someone.’

‘It was lovely of you all the same. I’m sure it meant a lot to him.’

‘I’m not a soft touch,’ Joe said. ‘If he isn’t up to scratch he’ll be let go. But he needed a break.’

‘Yeah, he did.’

‘And so do you.’

She grinned. ‘I got one. I came to Ardbawn.’

‘I hardly think . . .’

‘Don’t knock it. Didn’t you hear I produced the entire last edition of the
Central News
myself? I was the editor, subeditor and roving reporter all rolled into one. How many people get that opportunity?’

‘My father told me about that,’ said Joe. ‘He said you were very determined. He was impressed.’

‘A bit late to be impressing him,’ she said, and then she held up her hands. ‘Sorry, sorry, I don’t mean to go on about him, really. Anyway, it was an interesting few hours.’

‘D’you like working for the
Central News
?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ She hadn’t intended to say yes, because no matter what, the only reason she was there was because it was the only job she’d been offered. And she wasn’t enjoying the fact that nobody else seemed to want her.

‘What will happen when your time at the paper is up?’

‘I don’t know. My CV is out there with a ton of people. I’ve started tweeting some comments on sports stories and I’ve set up a blog, though I haven’t got around to writing anything for that yet because, believe it or not, I’ve been too busy.’

‘Whoever gets you will be lucky,’ said Joe.

‘You think so?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t know anything about me,’ she said. ‘Not professionally.’

‘I know that you spent a lot of time on the Conall Brophy story,’ he told her. ‘I know that you were caught up enough in it not to care about meeting me – which was perfectly fine,’ he added when she tried to interrupt him. ‘It was a good thing. You were right to stick with it. Afterwards you wrote a very sensitive piece about unemployment and what
it can do to you. I know that you were very concerned about the whole incident of calling to see my father and how I’d feel about that. So I know that you’re a good person.’

But you don’t know that I know stuff about your family that you might not even know yourself, she thought. And you don’t know that ever since I saw the note and the paintings and realised that there was a whole human drama going on there, I haven’t been able to put it out of my head.

‘I know that I’m glad we talked again and I’m glad you came here tonight,’ he said when she didn’t speak.

When he smiled, she could feel the electricity again. Crackling between them, drawing them together, making her want to be near him. Then the waitress appeared with their food and spoiled the moment. Sheridan picked up her fork and pushed the pasta around the plate. She wasn’t hungry. She placed the fork on the table. All she wanted to do was touch him. She was wondering if it would be totally inappropriate to take his hand when her phone rang and startled both of them.

‘I’m sorry.’ She fished it out of her bag and her eyes widened. It was Alo Brady. She glanced at Joe. ‘Would you mind awfully if I took this call?’ she asked. ‘It’s an old colleague of mine, and just in case he has something . . .’

‘Go ahead,’ said Joe.

Sheridan accepted the call and stood up from the table.

‘Hi, Sher,’ said Alo. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Not bad,’ she told him. ‘What’s up?’

‘Can you talk?’

‘Sure.’ She gave Joe an apologetic smile and stepped into the small vestibule of the restaurant. ‘What’s up?’ she repeated.

‘I know you were working on a story about Paudie O’Malley,’ said Alo.

‘Yes,’ she said tentatively as she turned up the volume on her phone to counteract the noise from the restaurant. Whatever story she’d thought she might write had been completely overtaken by what she’d found out about Sean and Elva.

‘Well, our site is running a piece on him next week,’ said Alo. ‘He’s part of a consortium arranging a telecoms deal in the Middle East. There are rumours of backhanders and bribes.’

‘Paudie’s been bribing people?’ Sheridan couldn’t help feeling shocked.

‘Maybe the word bribe won’t be used,’ said Alo. ‘We don’t want to be sued by him. But put it this way, the consortium seems to have had the inside track the whole way through the process, and we’ve seen some emails that are definitely ambiguous. It’s certainly worth our while posing the question.’

A few weeks earlier, Sheridan would have happily believed that Paudie had been involved in all sorts of shady deals to get what he wanted. Now, with a certain amount of surprise, she realised that she wasn’t so sure.

‘What can I possibly add to a story like that?’ she asked.

‘Well, in your emails to me you said you were looking at the personal angle,’ Alo told her. ‘Background family stuff. That’s what I want.’

‘I doubt that anything I have would be of interest to you,’ she said. Her knowledge that Paudie’s wife had had an affair years ago was hardly relevant to dodgy dealings in the Middle East today.

‘Paudie has a network of interlinked companies. So his
family members might be involved too.’ She could hear the excitement in Alo’s voice at the idea of a potentially great story. She knew the feeling.

‘What would be beyond brilliant would be if you had stuff going back a while,’ he said. ‘The early years. I read all that about the wife’s death. Depending on how we look at it, it could put a kind of sympathetic slant on the whole thing, because it’ll make people sorry for him, though it’s not an excuse, of course, for breaking the law.’

‘You definitely think he’s broken the law?’

‘Could be, if it’s proven that the deal is dodgy. Course, if he got away with pushing his wife out of a window, he’s already ahead in the breaking-the-law stakes – have you looked at that? There was a bit of gossip at the time, though not as much as you’d think really, which is interesting in itself. Like it was hushed up.’

‘He didn’t kill her.’ Sheridan realised that her voice was sharp. ‘I checked it out,’ she said more calmly. ‘It was an accident.’ But even as she spoke, she couldn’t help wondering again. After all, Elva had been cheating on him. Other men had murdered cheating wives.

She glanced back inside the restaurant. Joe was still sitting at the table, staring into the distance. As much as the idea of having her name linked to a story on the
Business Today
site made her pulse quicken, being with Joe made it quicken even more. So she couldn’t be involved with anything that accused his father of financial double-dealing. Just as she couldn’t tell Alo about the fact that Elva O’Malley had been having an affair when she died.

But she knew that Alo’s story would be big. Stories about corporate malpractice were always big, especially if they
featured someone as well known as Paudie O’Malley. It could only be good for her career to have her name attached to it, couldn’t it?

Good for her career, she reasoned, but what about good for her? Because if she wrote anything at all about Paudie, her relationship with Joe would be over. If, of course, there was a relationship with Joe at all. If she meant anything to him other than someone new to pass the time with. That was all she’d been to most of her exes. A girl to hang around with until someone better came along. And someone better always had. Except in the case of Griff, who hadn’t even waited for anyone else but who’d bailed out at the thought of living with her. She wanted to believe that with Joe it would be different, but how likely was that, after all? The odds were stacked against her. And her mother had always told her to play the odds.

So what were the odds against her and Joe? He’d been pretty keen to have dinner with her, he’d even said that he fancied her in front of his young nephew, but perhaps it was all just a bit of fun to him. She was the one, after all, whose heart broke into a canter every time she was near him – she had no idea what effect she had on him. He was used to being in the company of women who liked him, women like Ritz Boland who were beautiful as well as intelligent and who would surely be far more welcome in his world than her. If she passed on contributing to Alo’s story she could be giving up her opportunity to be part of something huge, something that would add a whole heap extra to her CV and get her name right out there again. How could she say no just because some guy she hardly knew made her feel like she’d never felt before?

Even as these thoughts raged through her head, Alo continued talking about the story and its importance and suggesting that if there was a possibility she could even get to talk to Paudie O’Malley, or, he added, his son JJ, that would be fantastic.

‘JJ?’ Her mouth was suddenly dry.

‘Yeah, he’s involved with the Middle East deal. Like his old man, he doesn’t do much media stuff. But he’s a shrewd operator.’

Joe had been to Dubai recently, she remembered. Maybe he’d only asked her out because he wanted to distract the out-of-town reporter from looking into Paudie’s business. Maybe he was totally stringing her along. Her hand tightened around her phone. That made a lot more sense than him actually fancying her, didn’t it? The O’Malleys covering all the angles.

‘So, are you on, Sher? You and me, the
City Scope
old guard breaking ground again?’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said.

‘It had better be a bit more than that,’ Alo told her. ‘I want really good extra info. A whole family-angle thing; people love gossip and it’ll bring in even more readers.’

The pleasure of Joe’s kisses was temporary. But her career was for ever. She recalled her parents’ words about winning at all costs. About taking chances. About not finishing second.

‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll get something to you. And I’m sure you’ll like it when I do.’

‘Attagirl,’ said Alo. ‘Now I’m off to figure out how to bribe a sheikh.’

She walked back into the restaurant. Joe’s smile marked a hint of anxiety in his look.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘My friend . . . well . . . he might have some work for me.’ She felt as though there was a rock in her throat.

‘That’s fantastic,’ said Joe. ‘Fantastic for you, anyway. I’m not sure how Dad will feel about it.’

‘Why?’ She looked warily at him. ‘Why would he mind?’

‘You think he wants to lose the woman who single-handedly got out the last edition?’ Joe laughed. ‘He wants to make you editor.’

‘You’re joking,’ she said.

‘Not a very sensitive joke,’ he said apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sure, though, that Dad would like to find some way of keeping you on the payroll. He loves initiative.’

Well I’m certainly using mine now, she thought, as she rubbed her temples. The whole situation was giving her a headache.

‘You OK?’ asked Joe.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I just . . . I’m . . . Don’t mind me.’

‘Your pasta is going cold.’ He indicated her almost untouched meal. She noticed that he’d eaten about half of his while she was on the phone.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘This isn’t great.’ He looked at her with amused concern. ‘Twice I’ve asked you to dinner and twice you haven’t got around to eating anything. Is it me?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it isn’t you.’

‘Good. Because I’d hate to think it was.’ He reached across the table and put his hand on hers.

The electricity surged through her again, a physical force, reaching every part of her body. She had never wanted anyone
as badly in her life as she wanted Joe O’Malley. Never. Damn the man and damn the feeble female emotions that were threatening to swamp her just when she needed to be cool and clinical.

‘Maybe we should go,’ he said.

There was no way she was going to eat anything else. She nodded.

Joe paid the bill and led her outside. She wanted to pull herself together and start firing questions about the O’Malley business empire at him. But she couldn’t speak.