Fiona was still sitting at the dining table, her eyes fixed on the laptop screen, as if her gaze might change the content or meaning of what she was seeing. Chrissie was sitting next to her, holding her hand but clearly with little comfort to offer.
It’s all about to get a hell of a lot worse, McKay thought.
Chrissie looked up at him quizzically and he nodded. He could lip-read the silent expletive that she mouthed in response. He nodded again, and took the seat to the other side of Fiona.
He took a breath, then began. ‘Fiona. I’m afraid there’s something else I need to tell you.’
She looked up at him, her expression suggesting she desperately wanted him to say nothing more. He wanted more than anything to oblige her, but he knew there was no possibility of delaying this. He had no idea what the full implications might be, but Fiona would need to begin dealing with them as soon as she could.
‘I’ve just spoken to Kevin’s employer,’ he said.
‘I called them,’ she said. ‘To tell them about Kevin.’ She frowned. ‘I was disappointed no one got back to me. You’d think–’ She stopped, clearly reading his expression.
It was perhaps fortunate, he thought, that she hadn’t managed to speak directly to Bob Chalmers’ secretary. If she had, she’d have received this news much more brutally. ‘I’m afraid,’ McKay said slowly, ‘that Kevin was no longer working there.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He hadn’t worked there for over a year. I was told he left suddenly.’ He was already wondering about the possible circumstances of that sudden departure. Something else to look into.
‘But that’s not possible.’ Fiona was staring at him wildly. ‘It can’t be true.’
‘I don’t know how it’s possible. But it’s what I was told.’
‘There must be a mistake. They must have got the wrong person.’
‘I spoke to the head of IT’s secretary. She seemed to know exactly who I was talking about. I’m sorry.’
‘I just don’t see how it’s possible,’ Fiona insisted. ‘I mean, he got the promotion. He went out to work every day.’
McKay had come across stories of men – it was always men – who’d been made redundant but couldn’t face the humiliation of telling their wives or families. They maintained the facade, leaving the house promptly each day, spending the empty hours in coffee shops or wandering aimlessly through shopping centres until it was time to return home. It happened. ‘I don’t know where he went,’ he said, ‘or what he did. But he wasn’t working there. Maybe he’d found another job. I don’t know.’
‘But why wouldn’t he tell me?’
‘If he’d been made redundant, maybe he was too embarrassed to tell you.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. We’d have dealt with something like that together. We’d have found a way through. He knew that.’
‘I don’t know, Fiona,’ McKay said again. ‘All I know at the moment is that he left working there a year ago. I don’t know why or what happened. We’ll have to look into all that for you. But I needed to tell you, because this might have implications for your finances.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We don’t know what Kevin was doing for the last year. We don’t know if he had a job. Presumably he was transferring the equivalent of his former salary into your joint account every month. But we don’t know where he was getting that money from. The one thing we do know is that he’d defaulted on the car payments. But we don’t know if he might have had other debts.’
He could see Fiona was struggling to process what he was saying. He didn’t blame her. He was having difficulty making sense of it himself. He looked helplessly at Chrissie.
‘Look, Fi,’ Chrissie said. ‘None of us really understands what’s going on here. But we’ll help you sort it all out. First thing tomorrow, we’ll get onto the banks and such, and we’ll find out what the situation is. Then we’ll see what we need to do to sort it out.’
Fiona had started to cry, and it wasn’t clear whether she was even taking in what Chrissie was saying.
Chrissie placed an arm round her sister’s shoulder. ‘Let’s get you back to bed for a bit. You’ve had a stressful day, and you need more rest.’ She rose and took Fiona’s arm. Fiona offered no resistance, but followed meekly out of the room, her face blank and heavily stained with tears.
It was a good half hour before Chrissie returned. McKay had busied himself in the meantime, first making himself a cup of tea, then searching on the internet for any reference to Kevin’s employer from around the time of his departure. He was looking for anything that might shed some light on the reasons for Kevin’s behaviour – a report of redundancies or changes to the workforce. The company, some kind of financial services operation, was a relatively large employer, so there were a number of references in the local press, but nothing that seemed pertinent to Kevin’s departure.
‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ Chrissie said on her return. ‘I suppose it’s too early for anything stronger.’
‘Maybe not on a night like this,’ McKay said. ‘We may all need a wee dram or two before the night’s out.’
‘I don’t know if she’ll sleep,’ Chrissie said. ‘I gave her a couple of the sleeping pills, but she’s obviously in a state. I just thought she needed a bit of time to herself.’ She followed McKay into the kitchen and watched as he filled the kettle. ‘How could that bastard do it to her?’
‘Kevin?’ McKay said. ‘I don’t know. I mean, we ought to reserve judgement till we know the full story, but even so–’
‘Even so, we know he was lying to her for the past year. He may well have left her with all kinds of problems. How could someone do that?’
‘I’ll be glad when we know the full picture at least. Christ knows what he was up to. I didn’t like the way the secretary said he left suddenly.’
‘You think he left under a cloud?’
‘It was the way she said it. As if it was a euphemism for what she really wanted to say. So, yes, I think it’s possible.’
‘Shit. If so, he’d have had a difficult time finding another job. But do you think Kevin really was the type to get himself sacked? He always seemed like the ultimate company man.’
‘I’m beginning to suspect that we never really knew Kevin at all. Not even Fiona. It takes a particular type of person to lie to their spouse like that, whatever the circumstances. Kevin always came across as the silent type. I’d assumed that was mainly shyness, but maybe there was more to it.’
‘You think there’s more about him that we don’t know?’
‘I’ve no idea. But you wouldn’t have got any inkling from his behaviour before his death that there was anything seriously amiss in his life, would you? I don’t know if it was deliberate lying or some kind of weird denial, but he must have been a real stranger to the truth.’
‘You think this is what Charlie Farrow’s got hold of?’
‘I’m guessing he must have got some of it, aye. He’ll be having a grand old time.’
‘Can you talk to him about it?’
‘I wouldn’t want to give him the satisfaction. And, to be honest, until we know what the full situation is, I wouldn’t want to offer him any additional ammunition either. Whatever Kevin might have done, we don’t know that any of it was criminal. It’s only relevant to Farrow if it sheds some light on the likely cause of his death.’
‘If Kevin was in a financial mess, it provides a motive for suicide.’
‘It might. But we don’t know yet what kind of a mess he was in. We shouldn’t jump the gun.’
‘Christ, you don’t need this, do you, Alec? You’ve enough on.’
‘I’ve always got enough on. Looks like we’ve another one today too. Body up near Dingwall.’ They’d made a point of never discussing McKay’s work – partly for reasons of confidentiality, but mainly because McKay preferred to keep his professional and domestic lives as separate as possible. He always let Chrissie know when he was working on a major enquiry, but he knew she wouldn’t ask about any of the detail.
She nodded. ‘I reckon we’re going to need that dram then, don’t you?’