37

Paula turned away from Cara and walked towards Buchanan Street. She wasn’t going to give that woman the satisfaction of a reaction. Over the percussion of her heels slamming on the pavement she said to herself, I refuse to believe it. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it.

Thomas hadn’t hurt anybody. Cara was mad. Totally mad. Obsessed. So caught up in this she couldn’t consider anything else. Sure, Thomas had become involved in the money-laundering thing to help Joe out, but murder?

Short of someone showing her a movie of Thomas committing actual bodily harm, she was never going to believe it.

Paula reached the car park, made her way to her car, unlocked it and sat in the driver’s seat.

And then she screamed, slamming down on the steering wheel with her hands. ‘That crazy, stupid bitch!’

No more. That was it. Whatever happened to Cara’s brother was none of Paula’s business. If Cara wanted to keep digging into it, she was on her own.

Then a thought weaselled its way into her head. Was she so annoyed because she was worried there was an element of truth to all of this? If she was that certain Thomas was innocent, why was she feeling so threatened by what Cara was trying to find out?

She needed a drink. Wine, gin. Anything to get her out of her own head.

Her phone sounded an alert. She fished it from her bag and sighed. It was from Bill:

You went to see Daphne? What were you thinking? Can we talk?

She thought about replying and quickly discounted the idea. Whatever came out of her in that moment would not be appropriate, and would surely only make matters worse.

Paula threw her phone back in her bag and started the engine. She needed to talk to someone to sort this in her own head at least, and the only person she could think of was Father Joe.

When she knocked on the refectory door it was opened up by Father Declan. He was a young priest from a nearby parish, originally from Ireland, who sometimes helped out when the incumbent priests were sick or on holiday. He was so young, thought Paula, that he looked like he’d just come from some pressing machine where the very young and faithful were forced into a shape of piety.

‘Father Joe about?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Declan said in his Dublin lilt. ‘He’s disappeared. Jumped in his car and went off. We’re still expecting a call from him to explain.’

‘Disappeared? He never said…’ Paula tailed off, feeling betrayed that Joe had gone off without saying a word to her. Then worry gnawed. This really wasn’t like him.

‘Yeah, the Bishop was none too happy. Last minute kinda thing, and not a word of warning.’ Declan scratched his face. ‘As far as we can see he didn’t even pack a bag.’

Now Paula felt a surge of fear. ‘Didn’t pack a bag?’

‘Well, his toothbrush is still there, but we haven’t really checked his drawers to see what might be missing.’ He blushed. ‘Not that we would know…’ he tailed off.

‘Right,’ she responded absently. This was wrong, she could feel it.

‘Anything else I can do for you, Mrs Gadd?’

‘If you hear…’ She corrected herself. ‘When you hear from Joe, tell him to get in touch with me will you?’ She turned and walked back down the path.

So focussed was she on her own thoughts, she almost bumped into someone.

‘Paula?’

She heard a familiar voice and looked up from the ground. ‘Bill. What are you doing here?’ He was once again dressed in expensive-looking clothes: dark-grey turtleneck sweater, black trousers and a knee-length navy-blue wool coat.

‘Probably the same as you,’ he answered with a tight smile. He looked over her shoulder at the door she had just walked away from. ‘Is he free?’

She shook her head. ‘He’s not there. Left without saying a thing to anybody.’ She hoped wherever Joe was that he was okay. On top of everything else she now had him to worry about.

‘Would have been nice if he’d let us know.’

Paula heard a mournful sound in that last sentence, as if Bill was heading to a dark place. She looked into his eyes and saw shadow there.

‘You okay?’ she asked and put a hand on his arm. He moved closer as if that was the signal he was looking for.

‘The other night…’ he began. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’ His eyes were on hers. On her hair, her shoulders, then dropped to his feet. Then they moved through the whole sequence again.

Paula lifted her hand from his arm and pushed it into her coat pocket, giving a little shiver as if the cold was her excuse.

‘Bill. That was a mistake. We agreed on the night – it never happened,’ she said. He opened his mouth in an attempt to try to speak over her, but she wouldn’t let him. Couldn’t afford to. ‘It never happened, Bill.’ She enunciated each word. ‘We were both in the wrong state of mind. We were drunk. Grief does strange things to a person. Besides…’ She tried to soften her words with a smile. ‘It’s really not fair to do that to Daphne.’

‘Daphne is…’ He closed his mouth. Held the fingertips of his right hand before his mouth as if stopping himself from speaking his mind. ‘I think I love you, Paula. I think I always have.’ He moved closer. His eyes beseeching. As if he needed her to really hear what he was saying.

Paula took a step back, but was stopped from going much further by the low-hanging branches of a tree that stood at the head of the path to the priests’ house.

‘Bill, please,’ she said and looked away. ‘Please don’t.’

‘Sorry, Paula. I should have said something long before now.’

‘What, instead of barely looking at me over the years? You were so distant at times, I was convinced you hated me.’

‘I had to protect myself somehow. And Tommy, and Daphne. While you and he were happy I had to damp that stuff down.’ He glanced at the church beyond. ‘There were times it was torture. When Chris was killed … I…’

‘Please, Bill.’

‘I could see how it affected you. And how you and Tommy almost drifted apart for a time.’

Paula crossed her arms and faced away from him. ‘There only ever was Thomas,’ she said. ‘If Christopher’s death put us under stress, there was never any doubt in my mind that we would find each other again.’

‘What about the last year or so? I’ve got eyes, Paula. You guys were not in a good way.’ He spoke louder than he intended, for he then apologised.

‘Yeah, that’s true, but we would have found a way through it. Eventually. That was who we were. We argued. We made up again.’

‘He was a changed man since Chris died. Even I could see that.’

‘And I never loved him any less.’ Paula’s feet were going numb with cold. She thought momentarily about saying goodbye and going back to her car, but decided not to. She had to be sure Bill understood the other night was a mistake, and would never be repeated. ‘And besides, if you’re having trouble with Daphne, don’t use me as your rebound.’

‘Trouble with Daphne,’ he repeated. ‘That’s the story of my life right there.’

‘Don’t stay, then. Leave. One thing I’ve learned is that life’s too short. I regret every moment I allowed petty arguments with Thomas to fester.’

‘Petty arguments,’ he echoed. Then laughed, the sound cruel and lifeless. ‘If that was only what it was. We’ve done some bad…’ Again, he held his fingers at his mouth. Stilled the words before they were released to sound. ‘Something in that woman died when she had that miscarriage all those years ago.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Paula said. ‘She had a miscarriage? When? Why didn’t you tell us?’ Then she remembered Thomas telling her about Bill’s fertility issues. Jesus, life could be cruel. Their chance at a child was taken from them.

‘Daphne didn’t want anyone to know. Said she was ashamed.’ His eyes were flat, the light in them dulled by visiting the memory.

‘Good God, Bill. You can’t live like that. That’s what family are for – to listen, to talk with. To help the process of grieving.’

‘Yeah, well.’ He sighed as if there was a great weight in his lungs and nothing could shift it. He stepped closer and pulled her into a hug, holding her for longer than was comfortable, but, sensing the intensity of his need, she didn’t have the heart to push away. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered in her ear, his breath a warm burden on her skin. ‘Sorry.’

He stepped back, as if marshalling his thoughts, but he was still gripping her upper arms – a little too tightly for Paula’s liking. He swallowed, looked down to the ground and back up, and in that moment he looked so like Thomas, Paula’s heart gave a lurch.

‘We could do this, Paula. I’ll leave Daphne … we’ll run away…’ He paused to watch as she shook her head, slowly and painfully.

‘It wouldn’t work, Bill.’ His grip grew tighter. ‘Let me go,’ she said. Nothing happened. She said it again, this time raising her eyebrows and staring him down.

He released her and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Fine,’ he said, rejection turning the plea in his eyes to the cold, hard stare of anger. ‘Let the cards fall where they will.’

Let the cards fall … what on earth did that mean?

He turned round and began to walk back to his car. And as he did she remembered the other questions she had for him.

‘You were with Thomas the day he died,’ she called after him. ‘I know you had lunch with him. Why did you never tell me?’

‘I…’ He turned and met her eyes briefly. Then looked away.

But then he seemed to square his shoulders. He turned back to face her. Paula could almost read his thought process. He had considered denying it, but the added detail about the lunch had made it impossible.

‘Yes, we had lunch that day,’ he said. ‘My brother all but died in front of me.’ His eyes clouded over, as if with the horror of being in that moment … and with awareness of his own failings. As if no matter what their personal issues were, his little brother’s heart stopped and he was powerless to save him. ‘Talking about it isn’t going to bring him back, though, is it?’ With that he turned away once more and stomped towards his car.

‘Bill,’ she shouted. She wasn’t done with him yet. She decided to change tack. ‘Ballogie. Does that word mean anything to you?’

He stopped as if he’d walked into an invisible door, then slowly turned, his eyes burning into hers with an intensity that made her step back. ‘It was a street just round the corner from where we grew up. Why?’

Something about the way he looked at her in that moment gave her pause. She decided not to mention the full name of the shell company. She would hold that piece of information back for now, or at least until she knew more. She groped in her mind for an answer that might satisfy him.

‘I found a file in his desk. A flat for sale on that street … Do you know if he was planning something?’

‘Tommy wasn’t prone to share his business dealings with me, Paula. You should know that.’ The charming man of only a few minutes ago was completely gone, and in his place, a man whose disappointment, mingling with grief and anger was on the turn towards hate. Paula couldn’t read whether that loathing was aimed at her or was being directed internally.

With one last look at her, he turned and walked away.

Paula felt a charge of worry. Let the cards fall. Was he going to do something stupid?

‘Bill?’ she shouted after him. ‘Bill!’

But he was in his car and without looking at her, he started the car engine.

Paula moved back and away from his car as if distancing herself from the cloud that hung over him. Her own grief was more than she could bear, how could she possibly help him handle his? She felt something brush her ankle. Looked down at the ground and saw a pile of leaves had been swept there. Hundreds of them. Each leaf not that much larger than a fifty-pence piece. They had settled there underneath the tree like a drift of crisp and tiny amber hands, curled at the edges. Plaintive. Needy.

As Bill drove past her, she studied his face and considered the swift changes she’d seen in it these past few minutes; so much emotional movement in only a few thoughts – his apology, grief for Thomas, pleading for her to recognise they could have something together, then struggling with her rejection.

She followed his passage back down the street and couldn’t help but worry he was going to do something that men do when the terror of dying no longer exceeds the pain of living.