Winner Takes It All (9 page)

‘
Roy, this is
Alex Cusack who’ll be buying the place.’

‘
Pleased to
meet you Alex,’ Roy said, shaking her hand. ‘I hope we can find you
something suitable to buy. You know Liverpool really is the place
to invest these days.’

‘
I know,’ Alex
replied, flashing Jack a look. ‘I’ve been given the low down
already.’

From the back of his car,
Roy fetched a box that contained hard hats and protective masks.
Alex thanked God she’d worn flat-heeled boots for this expedition
as she got the feeling her Jimmy Choo’s would have been snapped
within seconds.

Roy Reid opened the door
with a hard shove and a cloud of dust blew out, making Alex realise
why they’d had to wear the masks. There was no electricity so the
only light came from Roy’s high powered torch. At first it seemed
as though it was just scruffy and covered in newspaper and bits of
wood – presumably used by the tramps who had slept there. But as
Alex looked closely she could see the whole place stood like some
sort of eery relic. On the walls hung posters for cosmetic
companies that had long since gone out of business. The counters
and other fittings were still there and she noticed that beside
where the escalator once stood was an ordinary staircase, the
banister made from ornate iron. Alex decided there and then that if
she decided to buy it, this feature could stay. She would create a
mezzanine floor with a restaurant and these stairs could lead up to
it.

The shop was far larger than it
appeared on the outside. Alex decided that the cavernous ground
floor would make excellent conferencing space. Roy explained that
the upper floors were too unsafe for them to inspect so he could
only show them the plans. They went out into the old delivery yard
at the back for some air and Alex wondered if this was a wise
choice as the air wasn’t exactly fresh and Alex had a feeling the
tramps had used it as a toilet. She tried not to breathe as Roy
showed her the plans. The upper floors were laid out in the same
way as the ground. There had been toilets on each floor which meant
that there was plenty of plumbing, so each room could be en suite.
Even more exciting was the discovery of the roof garden. Roy
explained that in the early 1900s it had been used as a café for
the ladies of Cheshire who came here to shop but after the First
World War it had remained neglected. Alex was determined that
should she buy it, she would restore it to its Edwardian glory. Not
one to believe in love at first sight, Alex had to stop herself
from telling Roy there and then that she wanted to buy this place.
She convinced herself that it was illogical to have such a
knee-jerk reaction and she was only in such a hurry because she
didn’t know what she was doing.

Sad at saying goodbye to
the shop, they climbed into Jack’s car and headed to Dale Street to
have a look round the Staples Hotel. Like Church Street, a few of
the buildings were derelict and The Staples Hotel was nestled
between a closed down bank and an off licence that looked as though
it was on its last legs. Paddy, the hotel’s owner was a a genial
old Irishman who had decided to sell up and move back to Dublin.
This made Alex think of Mick, her great-grandfather. He died long
before she was born, but Lou had been so full of stories about him
that Alex felt as if she knew him. Apparently he’d always dreamt of
the day he could return to Ireland, and the only time he did was
when his body was taken to Donegal to be buried, as was Lou’s and
so would Alex herself in many years to come.

Paddy showed them round
the shabby little hotel. It was tall and narrow, the rooms garishly
decorated as if they hadn’t been repainted since the 1970s. There
were no en suite bathrooms, just a shared one on each of the
landings. Even so, it would be a lot cheaper and easier to convert
this place than the department store, but Alex just couldn’t summon
up the enthusiasm about it that she felt for the shell in Church
Street. She could just imagine how Michael would laugh at her
taking on such a huge project when he was already setting up a deal
with Georgiou Dimitrious to buy a cheap airline called Wings that
was dying on its feet and ripe for reinvention.

They left the hotel and
Roy Reid once again shook hands with everyone, thanking them for
their time.

‘
I’ll be in
touch,’ Alex said. ‘I’m off to Spain to view some land but when I
come back I’ll let you know of my decision.’

‘
The Staples
is a more expensive proposition,’ Reid said. ‘But the conversion
costs will be much less.’

‘
I know. As I
said, I’ll get back to you.’

Reid left and it started
to rain. Jack, Alex and Mel darted into a nearby pub. The girls
found a table, while Jack fetched the drinks.

‘
What do you
think?’ Mel asked.

‘
I like the
first one,’ Alex said.

‘
It’d cost
millions to smarten that place up Al. Are you mad?’

‘
Maybe, but
there was something about it that just grabbed me. I’ve got thirty
million to play with. It won’t take ten million to do up that
hotel, surely.’

‘
Close to I’d
say. If I was you I’d go with the other one.’

Jack returned with the
drinks and this time sat next to Alex. She shivered girlishly as
his meaty leg brushed against hers. He didn’t even seem aware that
it had happened.

‘
So what one
did you prefer?’ he asked her.

‘
The shell,’
she smiled sheepishly. ‘I bet you think I’m mad too?’

‘
Not at all.
You can make your mark on it.’

‘
What do I do
now?’ she asked.

‘
Well you need
to buy it for a start. Get a proper survey done; find out how much
it’s really worth. Then we need to make plans about what to do with
it.’

‘
Okay, well
I’m appointing you Project Manager,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll arrange for a
proper contract to be drawn up while I’m in Spain.’

‘
I’m very
flattered,’ Jack smiled. ‘But I’ve still got my own business to
run.’

‘
I understand
that, but do you think you could find time to help me
too?’

‘
How could I
refuse?’ he smiled enigmatically. ‘Let me get the ball rolling for
you, we’ll go from there.’

Six

As Tom drove down the A23
in the brand new Alfa Romeo given to him by Jackson, he
contemplated his new life. Sorcha had let him move into a little
flat she owned in Knightsbridge, leaving his old house alone to his
lodgers. Jackson had given him a crash course on all the right
designers to dress in and a big allowance to go and buy their
clothes. Then had come the car and also Sadie. As soon as she’d got
back to England, she’d stopped by and started their relationship
where they’d finished it in New York. She was kinky and passionate
and even though she wasn’t the nicest of girls, Tom realised that
if he was to inherit his true worth, he’d be expected to marry
someone like her.

And today he was to begin
his mission to destroy the branch of his family that had ruined the
Sheridans. The more he looked at it, the more unfair it all seemed.
This Louisa O’Connell had apparently pretended to be friends with
his great aunt Briggy and all the time schemed and plotted behind
her back to buy the company off her just so she could put her
Cusack son in at the helm. This may have happened back in the early
1970s but that was irrelevant, her actions still had an effect on
all of their lives today. Well, Tom hoped he could help put things
back in their right order.

Tara Eades had agreed to
interview him after some heavy PR work on his behalf by Tarrant
Hanratty. They’d warned him that she was a rather difficult girl
but this didn’t come as a surprise to Tom. From what he’d been told
about that side of the family, it seemed they all did whatever they
could to create trouble. Sorcha put it down to them having catholic
blood and Tom had just remained quiet, not wanting to remind his
grandmother that so did he.

Tom had never been to
Summerset before, and the first thing he saw of it was a large,
solitary pub called The Cherry Tree. It was the usual country pub
outside which a board stood advertising that it did lunches and had
a happy hour between four and seven o’clock. Sorcha had informed
him that this place still belonged to Louisa’s family - after all,
the Sheridans had given it to her father and that was how they’d
come to be in Summerset. Tom quite liked the idea of running a pub
himself – maybe once all this was done, he’d take it over. Run it
part time as well as doing his writing.

Summerset was the usual
unremarkable country village. The shops along the little high
street were more upmarket; there was a bridal shop, a posh looking
butchers, a candle shop and a small Waitrose. It was strange to
think his grandmother had grown up here and he wondered what it had
been like in the 1930s and 40s.

Things became more
interesting when he spotted Claremont Hall in the far distance.
From here, it looked like Buckingham Palace and it made Tom’s head
spin to think that back in the nineteenth century his great great
great grandfather had built it from scratch. Tom felt anger at the
thought of what was once the Sheridan family home being used as
nothing more than a tacky museum for visiting Irish people. It was
wrong to have bad feelings for the dead, but he couldn’t help but
hate Louisa O’Connell for doing this to his rightful
inheritance.

Tom parked his car in the
visitor’s car park, which was almost empty. The sign said it was
free to park for two hours and he hoped this interview wouldn’t
take any longer than that. The little part of him that hadn’t been
brainwashed by Jackson, felt nervous, wondering how he was going to
blag the concocted history of his life that had been on the CV
written by Maurice Bannerman. He’d never been a particularly good
liar and had to keep his newly found hatred of his distant cousins
fresh in his mind to propel him on.

An elderly woman sat
behind the reception desk and she told Tom to wait for Tara to come
and get him. She made it clear she had no intention of talking to
him so he instead looked around, finding the inscription beside the
huge ornate staircase particularly interesting.

In 1888,
Padraic Sheridan was looking to expand the brewery he ran in
Ireland. His old friend Alfred Cusack of Abbott’s Leigh told him
that over in the neighbouring village there was a wood mill that
was never used and a patch of land that would accommodate a big
house. You are standing on that patch of land, and that wood mill
houses the Sheridans brewery. In 1973, Louisa Sheridan O’Connell
Cusack bought Sheridans and transformed the family home into this
museum. It is a history of both the brewery and of Ireland for
those of you over from the Emerald Isle and missing home. We hope
you enjoy this experience and on your way out, don’t forget to
collect your token that will entitle you to a free pint of
Sheridans in any pub in the UK
- Christian
Cusack – Head of Sheridans.

These words made Tom’s
blood boil. Apart from Padraic Sheridan, there was no mention of
the rest of his family. It was grossly unfair to obliterate them
from the company’s history. They had been the ones to build it up.
Not the Cusacks.

His thoughts of revenge
were disturbed by someone tapping him upon the shoulder and saying
his name. He turned around and came face to face with a young woman
who he presumed to be Tara Eades. She was almost as tall as him and
nothing as he had been expecting. He’d been told she was mixed race
and imagined her to be exotic and attractive. Instead she was a
geek; her hair tied into plaits that were then fixed upon the top
of her head like a Prussian schoolgirl; her skinny frame clad in a
tartan pinafore and black polo neck jumper. There was something
quite charming about her look that made Tom warm to her, despite
himself.

‘
I’m Tara,’
she smiled nervously, extending an elegant hand. ‘I understand
we’re cousins.’

‘
Distant,’ he
laughed. ‘Very distant.’

‘
Well would
you like to come to my office?’

She led him through to
the back of the building and as he walked along, he was sure he
could hear the ghosts of generations of Sheridans who had gone
before him. Tara’s office was small and poky and quite scruffy with
bits of paper everywhere, on top of the PC on her desk sat a
stuffed panda. Tara was obviously childish and spoilt and had only
got to run the estate through nepotism. It made Tom furious to
think of some of the shitty jobs he’d had to do just to put food on
the table. She offered him a coffee and he declined, he didn’t want
to delay things any longer. They sat either side of her desk and he
was alerted to a tinny sound coming from the headphones laying on
her desk. She’d forgotten to turn off her iPod.

‘
I’m always
doing that,’ he confessed to make her feel better.

Tara picked the music
player up from the desk and tried to switch it off, her fumbling
hands making a mess of it. Without thinking, Tom reached over and
took it from her, switching it off.

‘
Thanks,’ she
laughed nervously. ‘I’m never good with things like
that.’

‘
There is
quite often a knack,’ he replied, realising she was as nervous as
he was.