After He Died

by Michael Malone

  ‘Mrs Gadd?’ The woman stepped forwards.

  ‘Aye, sorry, yes,’ said Paula. ‘Please, come in…’ She stepped to the side and let them both enter. ‘The coffee is on. Would you like one…’ she gave them a practised smile, aware as she did so that her cheeks ached.

  ‘Are you OK, Mrs Gadd?’ asked the man – DC Drain.

  ‘Sorry.’ Paula held a hand to her heart. ‘I don’t think I can take any more bad news. It’s bad news, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is there somewhere we can sit?’ asked Rossi.

  ‘Yes, sorry to keep you out…’ Paula rallied a little. ‘The kitchen.’ She turned and walked back down the corridor.

  She took a seat on the stool at her kitchen island, placed her hands round her mug to stop them shaking and faced the police officers. Waited.

  ‘You know Kevin Farrell and Elaine Teenan?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Kevin is my husband’s business partner and Elaine is their secretary. Why do you ask?’ Paula found herself blinking.

  There was a long pause. Then Rossi spoke: ‘They were found in the early hours of this morning – in his car. I’m afraid to say both of them are dead.’

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ said Paula. For a second she thought she might slip off the stool.

  Then she became aware that her mouth was hanging open. She closed it. ‘Poor Elaine,’ she murmured, holding a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God.’

  She looked down at the countertop for a moment and then raised her head, blushing, aware of the scrutiny of both the officers.

  ‘And Kevin…’ And then it hit her: he was terrified the previous night. An image of him popped into her mind; he was running his fingers through his hair. The skin tight on his face. Veins bulging. He had looked desperate. And what was it he had said – something about them – about she and him being ‘fucked’.

  What the hell had he and Thomas been up to?

  ‘How…’ Her throat was dry. ‘How did they die?’ asked Paula.

  ‘We can’t say at this point in the investigation,’ said Rossi.

  ‘My … my husband only recently died,’ she said. And then stopped herself. But why – why shouldn’t she just tell them everything? What did she have to hide? Within her though, there was some kind of deep reluctance. And she thought of the codes in the notebook.

  ‘Yes, we know about your husband,’ said Drain.

  ‘Bit of a coincidence,’ said Rossi.

  Paula was pulled out of her thoughts. There was an accusation in that comment.

  ‘If you knew my husband had died, you also knew he died of a heart attack,’ she said. ‘So I don’t see what the coincidence is.’

  ‘Just … two prominent businessmen – business partners – dying so closely together, it makes you wonder.’ The way Drain said the word ‘partner’ made Paula think they were angling at something.

  Paula shifted so that she was on the edge of the stool. ‘Do you think Thomas’s death wasn’t caused by a heart attack?’

  ‘We’re not implying anything, Mrs Gadd,’ said the woman as she shot her partner a look. Then the woman’s eyes softened a little. Paula wondered what she saw. A small woman in a giant towelling dressing gown that must have belonged to her dead husband. Dark circles under her eyes. Hair limp and tangled from sleep.

  Paula sat upright in her seat. Squared her shoulders. She would not accept anyone’s pity.

  ‘What can you tell me about how they died – Kevin and Elaine?’ Paula asked.

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t tell you anything at the moment,’ Drain said.

  ‘But the news is going with a lovers’ suicide pact,’ Rossi added.

  Paula laughed. It was involuntary. The sound shot out of her mouth before she could stop it.

  Both officers were looking at her with a question in their eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just, no way was Elaine Teenan having an affair with Kevin Farrell. She had far more respect for herself than that.’

  ‘How well did you know them?’ Rossi asked.

  ‘I’ve known Kevin for years. He went to school with Thomas. Thomas was very much the public face of the company. Kevin was in the background. And I’m afraid … well, it’s just my opinion, but I’ve always thought he was a bit of a fool…’

  Rossi raised an eyebrow and exchanged another look with her colleague. ‘Did you ever socialise with him? Do you know much about his private life?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Definitely not. Thomas knew I … let’s just say I didn’t like Kevin. I made it clear that I had no interest in spending any more time with him than was necessary.’

  ‘What can you tell us about Elaine Teenan?’ Drain asked after a moment.

  ‘Not much really. I mean, I’ve known her all these years but I’ve actually no idea if she was married and even if she has kids.’ Paula felt her face heat. ‘But she was a good sort, from what I could see. Smart. One of those women who make themselves indispensable. But, as I say, if she was having an affair with Kevin I’d be amazed.’

  She paused. They seemed to be waiting for more.

  ‘Where are the news getting the suicide pact idea?’ she asked at last.

  ‘Information already in the public domain is that Farrell cut Ms Teenan’s throat and then turned the knife on himself.’

  Rossi suddenly looked tired.

  Drain chewed his lip and looked out of the window.

  ‘Somehow the press got hold of that fact that…’ Rossi stopped to look at Drain as if looking for someone to blame ‘…Farrell drew a love heart on the inside of the windscreen using Ms Teenan’s blood.’

  22

  The police left, having made Paula promise that she would get in touch if anything occurred to her that might help the case. Rossi placed her business card on the countertop and gave her a pointed look.

  Paula went upstairs and dressed in a daze. A suicide pact. And the gruesome heart?

  She shuddered and looked at herself in her long mirror. Black jeans. Dark-blue blouse. Black jacket. She hadn’t even considered the clothes. It seemed being a widow had come to her without thought.

  Widow. She winced at the word, ripped the black jacket off, turned to her wardrobe and put her hand on a red one. But she found she couldn’t do it. She slowly pulled the black one on again. What did it matter…?

  Shortly after, she was outside the manse house at Father Joe’s parish church. She knocked and he opened it straight away, as if he’d been waiting for her.

  Paula stepped inside.

  ‘Aye, come in,’ said Father Joe with a half-smile.

  ‘Too early for a gin?’ Paula asked, sniffing the air pointedly. She looked him over. Dog collar, black shirt, black trousers, finished off with a dark-green cardigan. She looked at his feet. Brown corduroy slippers. All topped off with a grey and harried expression.

  ‘That’s Eau de Morning after the Night Before,’ answered Joe although his face seemed to strain to form a smile.

  Paula gave him a quick hug. ‘No judgement from me, Father. But you might want to brush your teeth before you meet one of your parishioners.’

  He crossed his arms. ‘I presume you’ve heard about Kevin Farrell?’ Joe crossed himself. ‘God bless his soul.’

  ‘I have. The police came to ask me about it this morning.’

  His expression slumped. ‘Really? Well I guess they have to do their job. And poor Elaine. It’s all over the news.’

  ‘Can we go and take a seat?’

  ‘Of course. Where’s my manners?’ Joe smiled. ‘The sitting room.’

  They sat on opposite sides of the ancient seventies’ three-bar electric fire set in a wooden fire-surround. Joe leaned forwards, elbows on his knees and hands clasped as if in prayer. There was a slight tremble there and Paula had the thought that this was more than a hangover.

  ‘You okay, Joe?’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ he said and rocked back in his seat. ‘Actually, no. This killing has really thrown me.’

  ‘Killing?’ Paula asked. ‘
You’re not buying the suicide pact thing?’

  Joe made a weak trumpet sound out of pursed lips. ‘No way were they having an affair. Elaine Teenan was devoted to her husband and kids.’ He paused and looked into the distance as if he saw nothing but a bleak future there. ‘Those poor boys, growing up without their mother.’ He shook his head. ‘She treated Kevin like he was her feckless younger brother. Did his books. Kept his diary. Washed the egg stains off his ties.’ He shook his head.

  Paula sat back in her seat, crossed her legs and arms. ‘You seem to know a lot about them.’ And she thought about what she’d told the police – she knew nothing of Elaine’s home life.

  ‘Not really. Just an impression formed from a few random visits to the office over the years.’ Joe crossed his arms too.

  ‘Joe?’ Her tone was a request for more information. What wasn’t he telling her?

  He stood up. ‘Look, I’ve got Mass in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Doesn’t Father Martin normally take the noon service?’

  ‘Some kind of stomach bug.’ Joe made a face.

  ‘Hope you don’t catch it,’ Paula said as she got to her feet, but thinking this wasn’t right. Was he trying to get away from her?

  ‘I think it must be the gin keeping me disease free,’ Joe said with a weak smile that was clearly an effort. ‘The preservative effect. It’s definitely a thing. They should look into that.’ He walked to the doorway. Turned back to her. ‘See yourself out?’

  Paula went to the sitting room door and watched him as he walked along the long narrow corridor that led to the sacristy. His head was bowed, hands in his trouser pockets.

  She was right. Something was very wrong with her brother-in-law. He was trying to give her his usual chat, but it was like he was phoning it in. Working on auto, while his real attention was focussed inward. And this was more than grief. Or, more correctly, something other than grief, because she was sure Thomas’s death was something Joe would never quite come to terms with.

  He said he was performing the service? She considered when she’d left her house and pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket to look at the time. It read 12:02. If Joe was giving Mass, he was going to be late.

  She hesitated for a second, then followed him down the corridor. She came to a tall, unpainted door. She knocked.

  There was no response.

  This was the only door he could have gone through, so she knocked again.

  Silence. She pressed her head to the door and heard a faint cough. She pushed the door open, calling ‘Joe?’ as she stepped inside.

  She looked around her. It was a small room. High ceilinged with a tall, narrow window inset among wooden panels. Under the window there was a large cabinet made of the same wood as the panels. So this was the sacristy. The only women who ever entered had a duster in one hand and a brush in the other.

  Bill, Thomas and Joe had all been altar boys and at family events they often talked about their antics in here while the priests were getting ready for Mass. Stealing sips of the altar wine. Putting big dollops of Brylcreem on the back of each other’s heads. And one occasion when they’d arrived too early, Thomas had put on the priest’s vestments and blessed his brothers, only to be caught having gotten as far as In the name of the Father – and was then given a slippering for his trouble – being hit by a slipper on his bare backside by old Father McLaughlan.

  A movement, and she was plucked from her reverie by the sight of Joe sitting as if folded up on a small wooden chair just beyond the vestments that were hanging off a series of hooks. He looked up at her, opened his mouth, just as Father Martin’s voice boomed through the wall from the church PA system.

  ‘Joe?’ Paula said. The sympathy in her voice enough that Joe fell forwards in his seat, hands over his face and sobbed.

  ‘Joe,’ she said again and stepped across the room, kneeled before him and took his hands in hers. ‘Joe, what’s going on?’

  He looked at her, his eyes dull with tears, imploring forgiveness. ‘It’s all my fault, Paula. All my fault.’

  ‘What’s all your fault?’

  ‘Everything, Paula. Thomas’s death. Kevin and Elaine’s murders. Everything.’

  23

  Cara was in Stewart Street Police station, sitting across a desk from two cops who had introduced themselves as DS Alessandra Rossi and DC Daryl Drain.

  ‘Thanks for coming forward, Cara,’ said Rossi. ‘Could you tell us again what you told the desk sergeant, please?’

  ‘Sure. So, I popped in to see Paula Gadd at her office…’ At the mention of her name the detectives looked at each other. ‘And Kevin Farrell was there with that woman who died in his car.’

  When Cara saw the news that morning she had barely been able to believe her eyes. Not least because a passerby had managed to take a photo of the bloody heart on Farrell’s windscreen, and the picture had now gone viral and was on every newspaper’s front page.

  It made Cara’s blood boil, how the news agencies curated what was important to broadcast. A whiff of sex and murder and everything else was relegated. It mattered little to them how many refugees were being murdered overseas. The salacious won every time, thought Cara with a shake of her head.

  ‘You’re on record as having complained about Thomas Gadd…’ Rossi pulled a notebook from her pocket. ‘What did you say … ah … Mr Gadd had tortured and murdered your brother in retaliation for him having done a hit-and-run on Gadd’s son? And what, you’re besties with Paula now that her man has died?’

  So that’s why they’d taken so long to see her. They’d been catching up. She examined the expression on the detectives’ faces and considered just getting up and walking out.

  ‘Aren’t you interested in this? I saw a man in the back seat of their car and not long after, dead bodies are discovered.’

  ‘Okay,’ Drain sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. ‘You saw this guy in the back seat. Could you describe him?’

  Cara saw him in her mind’s eye. Saw a moment of shadow and pale skin under neon. She cursed the quality of the light. ‘He was big. Hunched forwards in the seat as if he was too tall for the roof of the car. Or…’ A thought occurred to her. ‘He was holding a knife to the throat of the driver.’

  Drain sighed. He actually sighed. ‘Got a vivid imagination, haven’t we?’

  Cara cursed her stupidity. Even she thought it sounded crazy now the words were issued into air. ‘Given what we now know it doesn’t take that much of an imagination to join the dots. He was white. He was big. Light-coloured hair…’

  The two cops looked at each other. Cara read the look and felt a flare of anger. She stood up. ‘Sorry I wasted your time, officers. Clearly, thinking I was being a good citizen was a mistake.’

  ‘Sit down, please, Cara,’ said Rossi. ‘We do appreciate you coming in. Any leads on this will help. However, the evidence of suicide-murder is pretty strong.’

  ‘All I know is that I saw those two together last night, and if they are lovers then it’s incest, cos she was acting like she was his big sister. And there was a guy in the back of their car.’

  Drain sat forward, planted an elbow on the table. ‘What else can you tell us about him? Any distinguishing features?’

  Were they now taking her seriously? Somewhat mollified, Cara sat back down, her mind going back to the moment when Farrell’s car passed her. ‘As I said, he was tall. Had to be, the way he was hunched over. Caucasian. No facial hair. A lean face. Looked like he was wearing a black leather jacket. His hair was a light colour. Not blond. Light brown, maybe? It was hard to tell in the dark.’

  ‘And what were you doing at Gadd Enterprises?’ asked Rossi.

  ‘A charity thing I’ve got with Mrs Gadd,’ Cara answered. ‘But Mrs Gadd was a bit knackered so I said I’d come back and see her another time.’

  ‘You guys are good friends now?’ Drain asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Cara sniffed an As if.

  ‘You’re not besties and, yet
, you’re at Mrs Gadd’s office to witness a strange man in the back of a car.’

  Cara exhaled. She had the lie ready, but hoped it came across as genuine. ‘I work with an advocacy company. We don’t normally get involved in charity work, but I came across one who needed help and I thought I’d try to get her involved.’ She added a shrug.

  ‘The woman whose dead husband you accused of torturing your brother?’

  Time to leak a little bit of truth into her story, Cara thought. The best lies were coated in truth. ‘I didn’t want her money at first. I initially contacted her after her husband died cos she had to know something, right? I was angry. Tosh Gadd dies and the truth of my brother’s death dies with him. I wasn’t having it, so, rashly’ – she made an apologetic face – ‘I got in touch to try and find out what she knew.’

  ‘And…?’ said Drain.

  ‘Clueless. Bloody clueless.’ And in the saying of it, Cara realised that this was true. However much she tried to convince herself that Paula Gadd was the devil incarnate it wasn’t working. She caught an image of Paula up against the wall with Kevin Farrell’s hand at her throat. There was fear in those eyes, and no little courage in the way she recovered. Either she was a brilliant actress or she was completely in the dark about what her husband had been up to.

  She drooped in her chair. She might never find out what happened to her brother. She damped that thought down and sat up straight again. ‘Paula Gadd was happy to take her husband’s ill-earned cash and turn a completely blind eye as to how he made it. Does that make her a bad person? I’m not her judge, but if she has access to wads of cash and someone I know needs it, I’m going to take advantage.’

  ‘Her husband’s ill-earned cash?’ Drain asked.

  ‘Aye. Guy’s a total crook.’ She coughed. ‘Was.’

  ‘Based on what?’ asked Rossi.

  ‘Aww, come on.’ Cara looked from Rossi to Drain and back again. ‘You telling me Tommy Gadd wasn’t on your radar?’

  ‘Far as we know Thomas Gadd was one of the leading lights in Glasgow’s Chamber of Commerce. All above board and hugely successful,’ said Drain.