After the Truth (Book One)

Three

After a night's rest to get over the flight from Geneva, and help adjust to the time difference, Evelyn and I emerged from our hotel to be greeted by a still worried looking Albert. Martin Bradmore's widow was expecting us in thirty minutes.

We were driven to the northern edge of the Boucherville area of the city and parked outside a large house on the edge of a wealthy suburb which bordered corn fields. When I got out of the car I saw a woman in a light coloured top staring at me from a large square window at the front of the house. Two teenage children stood next to her.

'What are the widow and children's names?' I asked Albert. 'And more importantly what have they been told?'

'I've told her the truth, almost,' Albert said. 'I told her I am from the Public Health Agency and have said you are two of my colleagues. The widow is Patricia. The children are Helen and Martine'

'The best lies are half-truths,' Evelyn said as we walked up the tarmac drive.

Albert had barely pressed the bell beside the door when the woman from the window appeared. She asked us in and showed us to seats on a large white leather sofa in the living room. Helen and Martine stood with their mother and looked at us with eyes ringed red from crying. As he had said when we got out the car, Albert introduced Evelyn and I to Patricia and the children as his colleagues. I think Patricia had her doubts when she heard our non-Canadian accents, but she didn't say anything. Instead she asked us what we wanted to know.

'Thank you for seeing us at this very difficult time,' I began. 'We have a few questions for you, regarding Martin's well-being before he was so suddenly taken from you all.'

I knew I had slipped into "priest speak", as Evelyn called it when I was talking with a victim's relatives. I was being clinically sympathetic to calm Patricia and allow us to get maximum information from her.

In truth, Evelyn and I were detached from the sorrow and uncertainty that now consumed Patricia Bradmore and her children. We were here to do our job, to try and find a cause for her husband's death.

'I'd like you to think back to the weeks before Martin passed away,' I continued, 'I would like you to think of any changes in him, anything out of the norm. It could be something physical or it could be something emotional, or mental. Did he mention any pain or had his moods changed? How was his memory, was he forgetting things, or showing any signs of confusion?'

Patricia looked at me with an expression of contempt. It was as if I were accusing her husband of an affair.

'There was no sign of any trouble. He was taking medication for high blood pressure, but it was under control and Martin kept himself fit. Just last year he competed in the half marathon sponsored by his bank.'

'What about his sleep medication?' Evelyn asked.

'He took it when he needed to. He had a stressful job and had trouble sleeping occasionally. Everyone has that from time to time. People don't suddenly die from it.'

'What was your husband's job?' I asked.

'He was an Investment Consultant. He managed the investment portfolios of corporate clients for the bank.'

'Did he get very stressed with work?' Evelyn asked.

'Sometimes, when he was working on new client deals, or substantial changes to portfolios,' Patricia said. 'Recently he had been working on a big portfolio deal for an existing client and had been working very long hours. There were issues with the complexity of the portfolio he had created for a power company client. He was worried about some property investments turning bad in the Far East. But a few days ago he said he had sorted the problems so he and the bank would be OK.'