The Business by Martina Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

out of this pub, and deliver him back home to his wife with the minimum of fuss. No one seemed to allow for the fact that his own sons were within talking range but were giving him a massive swerve, that his own flesh and blood didn’t see the need to remove him from the premises so why should he be the one to provoke him even further? Because that is what would happen if he dared to try and make him see sense, make him go home to his wife. In fact, it was home that seemed to be the bugbear, he was avoiding it like the plague.
    There was a story there all right, only he knew that, given Gerry Dooley’s natural reticence, he would not be getting it any time in the near future.
    As Gerry downed another large Scotch and immediately motioned for another, Jackie wished that he had the nerve to remove him from the premises, but he knew he wasn’t capable of doing anything like that. Not to Gerry Dooley or to anyone, come to that. He didn’t have the bottle to assert himself without a Gerry Dooley beside him, orchestrating the proceedings, and he knew that a lot of their contemporaries were now well aware of that fact. It was one humiliation after another lately, and he didn’t know how much more he could take.
    The landlord of the pub made eye contact with him then, and he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t noticed it. Shrugging, Jackie opened his arms in a gesture of supplication, rolling his eyes as if he had no choice in the matter. He could feel the animosity coming off everyone around him, knew that they thought he was a complete ponce for allowing this to carry on as long as it had.
    As far as they were concerned, he should be keeping his boss on the straight and narrow, protecting him, ironing out any differences for him until such time as he got his head back to normal, had got over whatever lunacy had overtaken him. This was the first time in living memory that Gerry Dooley had ever stepped out of line, and that just made this all the more conspicuous.
    Sighing heavily, Jackie looked meaningfully at Gerald Junior and his brother Brendan and, in fairness to them, he knew that they were pretty much in the same boat as he was. Unable to spread their wings without their father’s say-so, and wary of confronting him because they didn’t know what would be the outcome. Gerald Dooley, for all his so-called decency and loyalty, was no better, really, than the bullies he despised. Because everyone in his world was only welcome provided they did as he expected, as he saw fit. That fact was becoming more and more obvious as the days wore on.
    As Gerry walked out of the pub with his sons in tow, Jackie looked around him, at the people who mattered and, blowing out his lips noisily, he said with a deliberate and theatrical pretence at loyalty, ‘What? Can’t a man have a few drinks?’
    Then, picking up his own drink, he looked around him as if disgusted with the reaction he had encountered, aware that he was not fooling anyone.
    He was determined, though, to find out what the big secret was, because he knew that if Gerald Dooley had wanted him to know what was going on, he would have heard about it by now.
     
    Imelda was lying in bed. She could hear her father ranting and raving and, even though she understood how disappointed he was in her, she still couldn’t equate that cold-hearted, vicious person with her father. With the man who had brought her up with hardly a raised voice or a cross word. Until now, he had indulged her, not as much as her mother had admittedly, but enough to make her think she was safe, that she was different to the boys. He had let her have more freedom than them because he had believed that his name, his reputation, should have been enough to protect her. That was also the reason why she would not say who the father was to her mother or brothers: until her father calmed down, he was best kept in the dark.
    She pulled the sheets over her head, trying in vain to blot out the sound of her father’s angry