Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dear Molly,
Please accept the return of the Oxford Bookship sign with my apologies once again.
The poor steering which led to its unhappy dunking was unforgivable.
As you rightly pointed out, I should not have been let loose alone on the barge when my canal experience was so limited.
It may be too little too late in your eyes, but I would like to reassure you I have signed up to the ‘Beginner Boating’ course offered by the Oxford Boating Association, and until I have successfully completed that training, I promise not to attempt to take the Jericho Wine Barge away from its moorings.
Speaking of moorings, I feel this is an issue which should be addressed.
If you’ll forgive me, I will get to it in a bit, but first it’s important for me to explain something else – my history with Liam Crawford.
What I’m about to share with you is not something I widely discuss.
It was a painful time for the parties involved and it’s not solely my story, but I want you to be aware of it.
Whether you choose to believe me is your decision, but I hope that you do.
You should be aware of the true nature of the man.
However, I trust that whether you take my word or not, you will respect my confidence.
‘The true nature of the man?’ That sounded ominous. And yet given what I’d discovered yesterday, I wasn’t surprised there were further revelations to be had. I patted Hilda and carried on reading.
Liam and I were once the closest of colleagues.
I’m sure he’s told you I was what’s widely termed a ‘Nepo Baby’.
My father and grandfather before him worked at the same firm, and it was always expected I would join the family profession and follow in their footsteps, whether that was what I wanted or not.
I hope you appreciate I say this not as an attempt to elicit sympathy or pity from you, but because it is the truth.
That weight of expectation was a burden from day one of me starting the job.
Not wishing to let down my family, I’d dismissed my own, very different, dreams as frivolities and was intent on living up to the Siddall name.
But the Siddall name was both a virtue and a disadvantage.
People expected more from me because of it, but they also dismissed any actual achievements as being the result of family influence.
I was never sure whether people were friends with me because of who I was as a person, or because of my surname.
Liam seemed to be different. He treated me as plain old Jack, rather than Jack Siddall the boss’s son.
I learnt something from his confidence and his easy way with people, and I like to think he gained too by picking up some of my business acumen.
As you may have realised, I’m not always the best at social interaction.
I was abominably rude when we first met and you were quite right to call me out for my ‘pretentious’ Greek.
I can only explain it by telling you I was horribly nervous attending a dating event and every time I opened my mouth, things came out wrong.
But nerves are no excuse, and I’m genuinely sorry for my appalling attitude.
I can hear you expressing surprise that someone who isn’t naturally at ease in social situations is running a bar, but that’s part of the point.
I wanted to challenge myself, but more importantly I wanted to create an environment where everyone feels welcomed and accepted, whatever their quirks.
Anyway, I should get back to what I was trying to tell you.
Liam and I were the closest of colleagues, and friends too, or so I thought.
I knew he was ambitious, but it wasn’t until it was too late that I realised just what lengths he would go to in order to achieve his ambitions.
I was asked to work on a project researching a potential investment for a long-term client of the company, and I invited Liam to join me on the team.
The information we were uncovering was financially sensitive and it was a big deal to be trusted to take on the assignment.
We were close to reporting back to the client when I discovered that Liam had been using the information we’d discovered for his own personal gain.
I’m sure you’ll have heard the term ‘insider trading’.
That’s exactly what Liam was setting out to do.
If he’d gone through with it, he would have made a fortune.
As soon as I worked out what he was playing at, I confronted him, feeling incredibly betrayed by his behaviour.
He didn’t deny it and actually laughed at my indignation.
He couldn’t understand (or maybe didn’t care) why it would be wrong to profit from the confidential information we’d been party to.
But if he’d done that, he would have been breaking the law, and sooner or later, he would have been found out by the authorities and the repercussions of that had the potential to destroy the business, and worst of all, my dad’s reputation as he was the CEO with ultimate responsibility for everything that happened.
I tried to explain everything to Liam, but he was unmoved by my fears.
What I’d thought had been a real friendship actually counted for nothing.
And so, I followed protocol and reported his actions.
Liam was allowed to write a letter of resignation rather than being fired on the spot, a generous gesture that I’d had to plead with my father to offer.
We should really have gone to the police about what had happened and sometimes I still wonder whether the decision not to do so was the right one.
But that was the decision we made, and we will have to live with the consequences.
After that episode, I started to question my own path.
It awakened me to the cut-throat nature of the corporate world and how it could lead some people to ruthless behaviour in the pursuit of coming out on top.
I knew in my heart it wasn’t the right world for me.
I wanted to prove myself on my own terms, striking out without the safety net of being part of the family firm, hence my wine bar endeavour.
I can’t offer you any physical evidence proving what I’ve written in this letter is the truth.
I can only offer you my word. It is your choice whether to accept it or not.
But I hope you consider it when it comes to your future dealings with Liam Crawford.
He can be a plausible and entertaining individual.
However, in my experience, there is only one person that Liam cares about, and that’s himself, never mind the cost to others.
As I’d been reading, I’d gradually sunk down to sit on the deck, gently squeezing a space for myself beside Hilda, although she was still pinning my feet underneath her.
I looked up from the letter, half expecting Liam to be lurking nearby having had some kind of sixth sense knowledge of what I was reading.
Jack’s version of events wasn’t that different from Liam’s apart from the obvious – who had been in the wrong.
If I were to challenge Liam, I had no doubt he’d come up with a plausible alternative explanation in that charming manner of his.
Given what I’d discovered with my own detective work and his crappy behaviour towards Flick, I was more inclined to accept Jack’s account, but I needed to read the rest of the letter before I made up my mind about that.
I’d made the mistake of jumping too quickly to conclusions before.
Now I’ve explained what happened with Liam, I’d like to move on to addressing the mooring situation.
You keep suggesting I’m trying to take possession of the Oxford Bookship’s mooring.
I want to put your mind at rest and assure you again that I am not.
While I am keen for the Jericho Wine Barge to thrive, I have no intention of developing it to encompass two boats at this stage, or down the line.
For me, the charm of the venue will be in its intimate size.
I had initially thought I might expand at some point by moving ashore and converting my living space into an extension of the bar, but now I’ve got a taste of canal life, I’m hooked, so any future growth in the business will be through opening an additional bar in another unique location. That is a way off, however.
I very much hope that the Oxford Bookship and the Jericho Wine Barge will co-exist happily beside each other, with customers moving between the two boats.
We had a taster of that last night during our respective events, and I am confident that with a little collaboration between us, our businesses could benefit each other.
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.
I mentioned earlier you would have to trust my account of what happened with Liam.
However, when it comes to my plans for the Jericho Wine Barge, you don’t merely have to take my word for it.
I enclose the complete paperwork of my agreement with the Oxford Boating Association, which details the extent of my plans.
As you will read in that, the Wine Barge will only ever be one mooring space big.
As to the misfortunes you mentioned, I’m sincerely sorry you’ve been experiencing such problems. You obviously feel strongly they are more than coincidental.
I can’t speak to that, but I would like to assure you I am not the man responsible.
I’m afraid this is another area where I can offer no proof, but I hope my transparency elsewhere in this letter will help you to trust me.