Page 12 of Guilty Mothers

‘It’s in my phone,’ Olivia said.

‘I’ll get it,’ Logan said, heading out of the room.

Tiff heard the patter of footsteps going up the stairs. Within seconds, he was back with them. He handed Kendrick the phone, already unlocked, and retook his place beside his mother.

‘Her name is Esther,’ Olivia offered.

Kendrick scrolled down and clicked on the contact number, which Tiff also logged in her notebook. The sarge handed the phone back to Olivia, who put it in her pocket.

‘May I ask where he was found?’ Logan asked.

‘Donkey Pool,’ Kendrick told him. ‘There’ll be a post-mortem to determine a cause of death and potentially an investigation, but that will be handled by CID.’

‘You don’t think someone could have hurt him?’ Olivia asked.

‘Not our area, I’m afraid,’ Kendrick said, placing his palms on his knees as though to stand.

Tiff had seen a pensive expression flit across Logan’s face. She was here as an observer only and wasn’t sure what to do. Sarge hadn’t noticed, and she didn’t want to step on any toes, but she resolved that she’d rather be bollocked for something she did rather than didn’t do.

‘Logan, are you okay?’ she asked, leaning forward.

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. It’s probably nothing.’

‘Tell us, lad,’ Kendrick urged, retaking control.

‘Well, it’s just that I’m not surprised you found him there. It was his favourite place to fish. He loved it. And…’ He looked towards his mum uncomfortably.

‘Go on, Logan.’

‘Well, he was suffering from depression.’

Olivia’s head snapped towards her son.

‘Sorry, Mom, but he didn’t want you to know. He knew you’d want to try and fix him and that you’d feel bad if you couldn’t.’ Logan turned towards them again. ‘He didn’t want Mom thinking she wasn’t enough for him, that she wasn’t worth living for. He just wanted to deal with the dark thoughts in his own way.’

‘Had he talked about taking his own life?’ Kendrick asked.

‘He hadn’t said those exact words, but he’d said he wanted peace, to escape his own head,’ Logan said, tapping his temple.

‘Okay, thanks. Be sure to pass that on to the person investigating his death. Mrs Dench, we’re very sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you,’ Olivia said, without meeting their gaze.

‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

‘It’s okay,’ Logan said, rising. ‘I’ll lock the door.’

They said their goodbyes on the doorstep.

Tiff followed Kendrick up the path and heard the locks click. She had an odd feeling in her stomach that she couldn’t place, but her mind kept going to the tea towel that Olivia Dench had been holding. Throughout the entire conversation when they had informed her that her boyfriend’s body had been recovered, she hadn’t let go of it once.

TEN

Olivia stood at the sink as Logan locked the front door.

She removed the tea towel from her hands and ran them under the tap. The cool water soothed the burns immediately, but right now she didn’t know which pain to focus on first, her hands or her heart.

Deep down, a part of her had known that James was dead, even though Logan had tried to convince her he’d just upped and left her for someone else.