Isabelle Dwyer was frightened. She and Tommy had never been close, but their relationship had deteriorated since Charles had died. Tommy had become morose, his mood had spiraled downwards sending him windmilling into a deep well of depression. He’d turned on Isabelle, blaming her for his father’s death, lashing out at her with vicious threats. Isabelle didn’t know how long it would be before he would lose control completely and strike out. At one point she had her suspicions that he may have discovered her dirty secret. But how could he have known? Charles didn’t know about Rose and William. Or did he? Isabelle was now beginning to wonder.
Isabelle knew that Tommy was jealous of the love his father had for her and knew he couldn’t see anything in her character worth loving. Tommy didn’t particularly like women, especially older women, he thought they were vile and pathetic.
When Tommy learned from his father what his mother had done, he went into a rage. His father pleaded with him to forgive her and insisted that he take care of her after he was gone. Tommy promised his father that he would, and he did, but in his own way. Two hours after their conversation he sent her a letter and demanded fifty-thousand dollars from her.
Within a week of his father’s death he travelled interstate for two weeks. When he returned to the family home he sat with Isabelle at the kitchen table and plied her with gin and antidepressants and didn’t listen when she pleaded with him to call an ambulance.
He left her dying, satisfied that a part of the debt Isabelle owed him and his father had been settled, and walked away from the house. He waited for an hour before hailing a taxi. Obscured by the dark shadows, seated in the back seat of the taxi, he arrived at Kingsford Smith International Airport. He didn’t say a word when he paid the taxi driver in cash.
The next day, on the other side of the world, he waited half an hour before his bag finally appeared on the luggage carousel at Charles de Gaulle airport. The woman behind the Europcar rental counter didn’t pay much attention to the man with the strange accent. She accepted his euros in exchange for the keys to a black, two door Peugeot. He placed the keys in his pocket and caught a shuttle bus to the rental car pickup area and headed out onto the A1 towards Gonesse. He had a long, lazy trip ahead in which to plan and fine-tune the next stage of his revenge. He travelled from country to country, from small village to small village, never staying in one place long enough for the authorities to find him. Six months later he returned home to learn that his mother had committed suicide and her estate had been dealt with by the executor, a Mr Martin Bartholomew. He disguised his rage when he learned from Martin Bartholomew that his mother’s entire estate had been left to a long time friend, a Mrs Rose Phillips and disguised his relief when he learnt that the Coroner’s findings were that her death was a result of a combination of alcohol poisoning and an overdose of prescription medication; a case of suicide brought about by the loss of her beloved husband Charles and the sudden disappearance of her only son.