Page 10
Story: My Wife, the Serial Killer
‘Well,’ she said, leaning forward again, switching her voice to a superfluous whisper.
‘I don’t know much about that foundation he was a part of.
Think it was like a community trust or something.
He went on about it a lot, but I was never really sure what exactly they did.
Showed me some newspaper clippings of it once, had them building a new hospital clinic or something. ’
Interesting.
‘You said he had no close family or anything like that?’ I asked.
‘Now that I think about it, he did mention once, a while back, that he had a daughter, but that was all he said. I don’t know what her name was, where she lives, or anything more about her. Gordon wasn’t exactly one to open up.’
He had a daughter? So, why wasn’t she calling us, asking what had happened to her father? And why was there absolutely no trace of any family in his house? I had seen no family photos or portraits.
‘So, there was nothing? No indication, no sign that Mr O’Neill would just up and vanish?’
‘You know, Gareth,’ Sofia replied, shuffling slightly forward in her seat, ‘he once told me, when I brought up the possibility of assisted living, that he would rather die in that house than move to anywhere else in the world. I think the man had too much pride to just randomly vanish or off himself.’
I winced at Sofia’s rather abrasive turn of phrase. But at least now I had the gut feeling from another person that Mr O’Neill hadn’t just disappeared – something malicious had happened to him. I knew it: I wasn’t having some isolated psychotic break.
Part of me wanted to tell Vivian and ask her if we could launch a full investigation, but I had a feeling that without any hard evidence of foul play, this would just end with me bracing for yet another slap on the wrist and a disciplinary meeting scheduled in my calendar.
‘Well, would you look at the time?’ Sofia said, playfully swiping my hand and rising to her feet. ‘I’d better get going; things to do, people to see.’
‘Ah, I guess you do have other clients to get to today,’ I said, getting up and starting to shake the numbness out of my legs.
‘Oh no, Tuesdays are my PhD day,’ Sofia said, as if this was common knowledge to me. ‘I have to go into the library to complete my research. I told you earlier, remember?’
‘Oh,’ I said, realising I had zoned out for a lot of her monologue, as she teetered out of the room.
‘Lovely meeting you, petal,’ she said, closing the door just as I decided to permanently eliminate Bingo-Girl Gareth from my personality roster.
I knew I had precisely four rings before I’d have to pick up.
Four rings to think of an excuse, reason or any kind of plausible deniability for skirting around my slightly maniacal boss’s orders.
I scrunched my eyes shut for a split second and began to force my mind to think as the first rumbling note echoed and bounced around the speakers of the car.
I had to pick up, otherwise there would be a very angry email sent to me, and that would be so much worse. Trust me, so much worse.
Ring.
After talking with Sofia, my research into O’Neill’s foundation, Heart of Hope, hadn’t exactly been fruitful, only uncovering that they gave a sizable chunk of money to the local community.
But following Sofia’s tip, I had found Mr O’Neill had previously served as the managing director of a firm called IGN Accountancy from 1974 to 1988.
According to Companies House records, IGN Accountancy appeared to have raked in substantial profits until all of a sudden: bankruptcy and liquidation.
It seemed as if O’Neill had managed to restore some of his fortune when he set up the Heart of Hope Foundation in 1991.
Ring.
I’d tried to dig a bit deeper to pinpoint the time of O’Neill’s disappearance.
There was a chain convenience shop at the far end of our road where I’d grabbed some microwave meals before, so I swung by on my way home for lunch and asked them for their external CCTV footage.
They’d told me the feed went directly to their corporate headquarters, but they promised to email me the footage by the end of the day.
While I didn’t expect it to turn up any crucial leads, it had been good to cross another potential source of information off the list.
Ring.
I’d performed one more sweep of O’Neill’s house while I was nearby, careful not to disturb anything or move anything a millimetre out of place.
I’d thought about asking Steve to give me a hand looking around the house to see if there was any detail I’d missed, but I felt after yesterday’s bathroom debacle, it would be a surefire way to get me into Vivian’s office again.
Ring.
I had no line or excuse prepared as I indicated into the hard shoulder on my way back to the station to go over some files on another case. I pressed down hard on the answer button like it was the final cable to cut as I attempted to defuse a nuclear bomb.
‘Hi, Vivian, how are…things?’ I asked, grabbing my tea from the holder and nervously taking a sip – a coping mechanism, I was sure.
‘Darren tells me you booked out Questioning Room A for nearly two hours today. It had better have been for one of the cases I assigned you.’
I had an answer prepared for this, but also, I thought: snitches get stitches – right, Darren?
‘Yep. Spoke to the Lock family this morning to keep them in the loop, forensics sent me the results, files are on your desk. Thought it would save adding any unnecessary weight to your inbox.’
I could hear her pause, a little stunned – and hopefully a little impressed – but I knew that feeling wouldn’t last long.
‘Why did you book out Questioning Room A for two hours, Gareth?’ she asked, barely missing a beat.
I took a glance at my diary, which lay open on the passenger seat.
The page I had allocated for Sofia was scribbled with notes and question marks in my signature red ink.
Red ink meant ‘unconfirmed’, black meant the opposite.
As you might have guessed, there was a copious amount of red ink sprawling across the page, so much I couldn’t seem to make sense of.
No matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn’t ignore Mr O’Neill’s case.
‘Look, I know you said not to investigate, but I had some spare time, and I just wanted to see?—’
‘Gareth. No. You went against orders on this one. I told you not to investigate this, and you did anyway. You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?’
‘No, you told me to focus on the Lock case, and I did. The results are on your desk. But a man is missing. When his daughter calls, worried sick that her dad isn’t responding, what are you going to say?
Will you tell her that a police detective noticed he was missing and you did nothing, or will this become yet another tabloid story? ’
During the silence that followed, I realised that a less aggressive tone might have helped my chances to appease Vivian.
I knew the tabloid comment would sting. I’d heard breakroom rumours that our station had featured in various escapades – putting it mildly – in the five years Vivian had been DI and she was under close watch from the commissioner for any more negative front-page publicity.
‘So, what exactly are you proposing?’ Vivian asked.
Now I was the one stunned. I didn’t think Vivian had ever asked me for actual input on a case for the whole time I had been here.
Christmas had come remarkably early. This was my chance to not only find the killer who had presumably murdered my next-door neighbour, but also to finally prove myself in the station.
‘Donoghue, are you there?’ she pressed when I didn’t answer right away.
‘I propose that we start investigating,’ I said, managing to string some words together in a somewhat articulate order. ‘Maybe we get a constable also working on the case, and if we can, get forensics to do a sweep of the house. There’s a killer here, I’m sure of it.’
There was a silence on the other end of the line, and I winced, hoping that it wasn’t all just one big play from her to then backhand me.
‘You know the relevant emails. I’ll get on the risk assessment paperwork. You let me know what else you need, okay?’
‘Thank you, Vivian, so much,’ I stuttered, still in a bit of disbelief.
You get more flies with honey than vinegar, that’s what I always said to Fran.
‘But if you cock this up and he turns up at home safe and sound tomorrow morning, I’ll have your head on a spike. And your dick on a kebab.’
Well, she had to go and ruin it, didn’t she?
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10 (Reading here)
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55