‘No,’ I said, my pen furiously beginning to scribe, hoping that wouldn’t throw her off-kilter. ‘His file just said he was self-employed?’
‘He had this foundation and another business too, something with accountants…’
Before I could probe more, there was a polite knock, and I saw Darren, of all people, peer around the edge of the door.
‘Are you going to be much longer?’ he asked coarsely. ‘I booked this room out from eleven.’
‘Sorry, sorry. I’ll be literally two seconds,’ I replied, with a brief appearance from Office Gareth. ‘Just finishing up and then it’s all yours.’
He didn’t even acknowledge my response as he slammed the door shut. It wasn’t worth the effort of rolling my eyes. I turned back to Sofia.
‘You take as long as you like,’ I said slowly.
‘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 mealsbefore, 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.
