After He Died

by Michael Malone

  Then again a little louder.

  ‘Recognise that?’ she asked, and Paula could hear the pleasure in her voice.

  ‘What are you…?’ Paula shivered and tried to turn away, but Daphne held her head fast.

  Daphne breathed again. Heavy. The air was coming out of her mouth as if it held its own echo. ‘Does that ring any bells?’

  ‘What is wrong with…?’ And then the realisation hit: the silent phone calls.

  Daphne’s eyes shone. ‘I’ve been playing with you all this time.’ She made a fake sad face. ‘My husband died. Poor little me.’

  ‘You’re sick,’ Paula said trembling. ‘Sick…’ She paused. ‘And hacking into my computer? Was that you as well?’

  Daphne stepped away and shrugged. ‘Wasn’t me, hen. Must’ve been Kevin. He’s the only one I know who’s good enough with all that interweb stuff.’ She stopped to think for a moment. ‘But the “mugging” at the side of the road?’ She made speech marks in the air when she said the word. ‘You’re so dim you made it easy for us. All of it was my idea. Clever, eh?’ She all but hugged herself with delight. ‘You see, the plan was to keep you distracted. Unsettled. So you’d make a mistake and lead us to the money.’ Her face darkened. ‘Which we still don’t have…’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Paula said with a gasp. The deviousness. Who did that? She’d been around Daphne and Bill for years and had no idea what they were really capable of. She looked again into Daphne’s eyes. What she saw there chilled her to the core. She was nothing but a bug to this woman. No, worse than that, she had everything Daphne ever wanted: a child; success. Bill’s love. And for that she was going to die. There was no other way she could see this situation resolving itself. Other than with her death.

  Paula resorted to the one thing she could think of. The only defence she had in that situation. She could not, would not, go down quietly. People would know she was in trouble, so she opened her mouth, filled her lungs and screamed as loudly as she could.

  47

  Cara was sitting outside Paula Gadd’s townhouse. Just over twenty minutes’ drive from Heather’s house in Possilburn and the difference in surroundings was so striking it might as well have been in a different time zone.

  She looked along the row of cars ahead of her. They were all expensive and new or fairly new. She felt her disgust at the unfairness of life sour in her mouth. All of these massive, striking homes with only a handful of people getting to benefit from them.

  Taking her key from the ignition, she thought, just for a moment, of walking along the street and keying the paint from all the cars in the row.

  As if that would fix anything. Life was unfair. She needed to get over it.

  What did she think she was doing here anyway? Paula wouldn’t thank her for turning up at this time of night.

  But she did need to know the truth – that Bill, with the encouragement of Daphne, had killed Sean. That truth burned, but Paula needed to know it. The woman could quite easily go into old age and her grave in ignorance. She’d just spend her cash on expensive baubles and ease her conscience with charity work. And as far as Cara was concerned that wouldn’t be fair.

  She compared the lives and deaths of the two young men. They had been about the same age when they died. Both died in an act of violence, but one of them had loving parents and all the opportunities that life could offer. While her Sean had battled through his short life against the chaff of poverty … the huge material disadvantage and crushing self-doubt it forced on people.

  Short lives. Massively different potential in each. And death bringing it all to an abrupt end. An end that continues to stab and wound and tear at the people in these young men’s lives, all these days and months and years later.

  Cara’s phone sounded an alert. She picked it out of her pocket, and saw that it was a work email. She dismissed it. She could read that in the morning. Then she remembered that she still hadn’t read the text from Paula. She swiped to her messages.

  She gave a little nod as she read. At least Paula was apologising.

  Damn. Just when she convinced herself to dislike the woman again, she weaselled her way back in.

  The line about her current whereabouts was a bit odd, though. Why would she want, or even need to tell Cara that?

  She read it again. It felt conversational. Fair enough. But that wasn’t their relationship so far. They were never really chatty with each other. It was all about passing on information.

  Cara could hear Dave telling her that she read too much into things. But then he applied that action to all women of his acquaintance. She gave a mental shrug of acknowledgement; it was certainly accurate as far as she was concerned. But it normally served her well.

  So, why was Paula really telling her where she was? Was she worried about something? Uneasy?

  Why?

  Because, as she’d said herself, people were being killed.

  It struck Cara then that Paula seemed to have lots of people she knew, but, as far as she could see, no real friends – apart from the priest. The nub of sympathy for Paula grew a little. She tried to quash it. The woman was nicely compensated to be fair. Cara looked over at Paula’s front door. Saw the large windows, black spaces reflecting back streetlight and dark skies, with nothing behind them but things that would offer nothing to ease the loneliness.

  She compared it with the house she’d just come from, which was tiny and basic in comparison, but it was filled with people who clearly cared about Heather and her devastating loss. Paula’s loss seemed to have driven people away. Despite all her wealth, what did Mrs Gadd really have in her life? Who did she have in her life?

  Cara attempted to dim her growing sense of care for the woman. Then she read the message again.

  Damn.

  She had followed Tommy Gadd over there more than a few times over the years, so she knew exactly where it was. And it was only a little detour.

  In fact it was a massive detour, but her gut was telling her events were coming to a conclusion. There was a build-up of bodies; she knew a hell of a lot more than she ever had. This was all coming to a head.

  She was sure of it.

  48

  Over at King’s Park, Cara had to drive up and down a few streets before abandoning her car on a corner of a street one back from where Bill Gadd lived.

  The security door was open. Unusual. Should she be concerned? Taking a step back she looked up at the first-floor windows. Both were in darkness. That was odd. She looked back down the street. Left and right. There. She squinted. That was Paula’s Range Rover, so she was here.

  Then why were the lights off? The layout of these houses were similar to many tenement flats throughout the city. The front-facing rooms were living rooms and bedrooms. Kitchens looked out over communal backyards. Might they be chatting in the kitchen, after all that’s where the best parties always ended up? The wording of Paula’s text, however, suggested this would not be much of a party.

  Something in Cara’s gut turned over – a warning. She’d leaned on her instincts many times over the years and they were rarely wrong. This was definitely iffy.

  Hand on the door, she pushed it open, stuck her head inside and listened. Nothing. Her breathing seemed to echo in the stone-clad space.

  Then a scream.

  A fist-clenching, hair-raising, face-slap of a scream.

  And she was sure it was coming from Paula Gadd’s lungs.

  Without a thought, she made for the stairs, ran up them two at a time and on the first-floor landing came face to face with the man from the Mondeo.

  He smiled in recognition. A smile that promised much in the way of pain. ‘You,’ he said. His body was relaxed, expansive. He was king of this particular castle. ‘They should put you in Bond movie and call you Miss Badpenny.’ At Cara’s lack of response he gave a little grimace. ‘I never understand you Scots and your sense of humour.’ He set his feet as if getting ready to attack. ‘No worries. I was coming for you anyway.’

>   Cara stood loose. He would be strong and those massive hands could cause real damage.

  He reached for her as if expecting her to stand in place and take her punishment.

  She danced out of his reach.

  He made a low noise of appreciation, twitched his head.

  The landing area was small so there was little space to manoeuvre, which would work to his advantage. She didn’t want to reveal too much to him too soon, so she pretended to be even more scared than she really was.

  ‘Please,’ she said, hands up. ‘I just want to speak to Paula.’

  He tried to rush her again, but she ducked and moved to her left, almost getting pinned against the banister, but moving out of his space just in time. She felt a surge of adrenaline. And fear. That was close.

  ‘Come on, little girl. Why you dance away from me?’

  ‘Just let me go, mate,’ Cara said. ‘I’m a nobody. I’m no risk to you.’ She considered her options. She was used to fighting a bigger, stronger opponent, but that was in a dojo under accepted rules of engagement. Sure, she’d been in tricky situations where she’d had to be able to look after herself, but never before with someone who looked like they wanted to kill her.

  She pushed that thought to the back of her mind. A scared mind was a beaten mind, and she couldn’t afford to let this man win.

  But while she was thinking this through, he rushed her again. She darted to the side, but his right hand caught her shoulder and sent her spinning towards the Gadd’s front door.

  She was in completely the wrong place to get out of here. He was now between her and freedom. And what about Paula? What state was she in that made her scream like that?

  ‘Stand still, little girl and this will all soon be over. I will be gentle on you,’ he said.

  It was time to give him something to think about.

  She sprang within his reach. Aimed a punch at his throat. But he swung and caught her a glancing blow to the side of the head.

  Ear ringing, she ducked back and then realised just before it was too late, that she was right at the top of the stairs she had ran up just moments earlier. She had to get this over with soon. His superior size and strength could cause her a lot of damage.

  But it could also be his weakness…

  She feinted, and he closed in to grab her. She allowed his movement, sacrificing her safe space with a prayer that what she was about to do would work. She fell onto her back, grabbed his jacket, planted her right foot in his midriff, and his momentum and weight meant he went flying over her head.

  He tumbled down the stairs, grunting his surprise, heels over his head, as if in slow motion.

  Cara jumped to her feet, hoping he’d broken something important. She was disappointed to hear him groan. This was far from over. The minute his head cleared he’d be back up those stairs, furious he’d been thrown by a woman. She had to do something decisive.

  Cara leapt down to his side, picked up his foot, placed it on the bottom step and, telling herself she had no choice, jumped on his knee.

  His scream of agony echoed in the hall.

  ‘Stay down,’ she told him.

  She ran back up the stairs, shouting Paula’s name.

  The door at the top of the stairs was open. From inside she heard a crash and a muffled scream. Without worrying who else might be about, she ran inside. Saw movement to her right and entered the living room.

  She saw one man motionless on the floor, one woman on a chair hands behind her back as if they were tied there. Judging by the size of her this would be Daphne and judging by the lack of movement from the man, and the large stain on the floor beside him, he was dead.

  Paula was also on the floor, tied to a chair that had been upended, a stretch of duct tape over her mouth.

  ‘Oh, thank God you came,’ Daphne cried from her chair. ‘That man was going to kill us all.’

  Cara ignored her and made for Paula. Bending down she grabbed the chair and pulled it up onto its four feet so that Paula was upright. Then she set about releasing Paula from the tape.

  ‘Can’t find the end of this,’ she said, anxiously feeling for a rough edge. Paula mumbled from behind the tape, becoming bug-eyed and bucking in the seat.

  She heard a creak of floorboard, sensed someone move behind her and spun away from her position. As she did so, she had the presence of mind to bring a block into play. And there she saw Daphne, a long blade jutting from her hand.

  With her right forearm, Cara kept the knife at bay, and brought her left fist up in a swing into the woman’s gut. It seemed to go in forever and felt like hitting a cushion, but judging by the squeal that came from her mouth, Daphne felt it.

  And then Cara reached back with her right and struck again.

  Daphne tumbled, as she did so she dropped the knife.

  Cara lunged to pick it up, and seeing Daphne groan on the floor, hand over her face, she realised the threat was over.

  49

  Paula looked out of the window, across the wide bow and curve of the beach to the Ettrick Bay Tearoom, to see if her expected arrivals might be early. She didn’t really have a good vantage point from there to see who was coming along the road, but she looked anyway.

  After about four months on her own in the cottage she was about to have some visitors. And although she’d spoken to them both on the phone and by text, numerous times, she was feeling a little nervous.

  The small clock on the oven told her she had half an hour before the ferry got in, once she made allowances for the one-hour error. She still didn’t know how to change the thing to account for the clocks going back.

  Did she have time to shower and change? She looked down at the t-shirt, cardigan and loose sweatpants she was wearing. They could take her as they found her, she thought.

  In bare feet, she made her way through to her bathroom and examined her hair in the mirror above the sink. How could a woman live in a house with so few mirrors? What had Thomas been thinking?

  She placed fingers on both cheeks, eased the skin back and down, temporarily removing the bags. Had she aged? Or was her skin dried and windblown after all those long walks? She turned her attention to her hair. She could at least tug some of the knots out. Noticing the grey hair coming in at her temples and threading through her middle parting she wondered at the woman she’d become. Big pants and grey hair. What would Thomas make of her?

  After she’d yanked at her head and patted her hair down into something resembling a style, she went back to the bedroom and checked the time on the small clock on her bedside cabinet. They’d be here in forty-five minutes. She spotted the novel at the side of the clock. There was enough time to finish another chapter.

  The wee bookshop and the library in Rothesay had become her refuges. Access to other lives through books helped her make sense of her own. As the winter storms battered the bay beyond her window, these volumes had become her friends and respite.

  But now the real world was about to come knocking – in the shape of the only two people left in the world who cared whether or not she was still a part of it. Father Joe and, somewhat surprisingly, Cara Connolly. Who’d have thought that after that inauspicious meeting they’d have gone on to become friends.

  Amazing what facing down a pair of pathological murderers could do for a friendship.

  Of course the papers had been full of the death of Bill Gadd. Daphne and her Polish lover had been painted as the demon couple, which wasn’t that far from the truth, but you’d think there had been no other crime committed throughout the history of Glasgow given the glee with which the media reported it.

  The similarities to the Moldovan financial scandal gave the newspapers licence to attack the Scottish Government for allowing another such crime to happen. With the addition of sex and murder, the press had a field day.

  Rusnak had disappeared, a feat that Cara said she found impressive, given the damage she’d done to his knee. It turned out his name wasn’t Anton Rusnak at all. His car registrati
on as recorded by Cara’s phone led to an address in the Gorbals where a passport in the name of one Jan Kowalski was found. The photo inside matched the man Paula had seen murder Bill Gadd.

  It was a moment that visited her regularly as she slept.

  The police detective, Rossi, assured her that without a passport he couldn’t leave the country and the people he would have normally turned to for help in getting over to the continent were the people he’d been fleecing. Rossi was convinced he was currently feeding whatever creatures inhabited the bed of the River Clyde.

  Paula wasn’t so sure. The thought that he might be alive and kicking had almost kept her away from the cottage, but then she considered that if he was still intent on doing her damage, it wouldn’t much matter where she was living, he’d find a way to do just that.

  Thankfully, Daphne had pleaded guilty to all charges – complicity to murder, drug dealing and money laundering. So there had been no trial, and her jail sentence was pleasingly hefty. Suffice to say, by the time she got out, should she outlive it, she’d be heading for an old folks’ home. An image of Daphne, blue rinse, zimmer at the ready, surrounded by other very old people, their collective milky-white stare focussed on a giant TV screen showing nothing but an endless run of Pointless Celebrities, cheered Paula no end.

  Bang on time, she heard a knock at the front door. Without waiting for her to answer, Father Joe walked in, followed by a smiling Cara Connolly and a waft of cold, sharp air.

  ‘Quick, come in,’ Paula said, and pointed to the sofa. ‘Have a seat.’ Now that they were here, she was feeling weirdly nervous. But that was soon washed away with the good cheer and hugs both of her visitors shared with her.

  ‘You look well,’ said Joe as he sat down.

  ‘Aye, you were a bit of a skinny bitch before,’ agreed Cara. ‘A wee bit of podge suits you.’

  ‘A wee bit of podge,’ Paula repeated, arranging herself on the armchair, pretending to be outraged, while thinking that her face might split in two, her smile was so big at seeing these two.