Page 24 of Guilty Mothers

‘I knew it. When he didn’t call after a couple of months, I knew he was dead. Really, I knew straight away. He’d never have run out on Olivia like that. He was head over heels. He wouldn’t have?—’

‘Really?’ Tiff asked. ‘I thought it was more of a casual thing.’

‘Not on his part. He told me he’d never met anyone like her, that when they were together all they did was laugh. He was almost in tears when he told me about how she’d taken care of her late husband. After all those years, I really thought he’d found the one. He was the happiest he’d ever been.’

‘Despite the depression?’ Tiff asked.

‘What depression?’

Tiff grimaced, feeling like she’d said too much. If he’d been hiding it from his girlfriend, it wasn’t much of a stretch to believe he’d hidden it from his sister.

‘You’re saying James didn’t suffer from depression?’

‘Well, maybe occasionally, but not for a long time.’

Tiff tried to be as tactful as possible. ‘So he could have been depressed?’

‘Well, I suppose. I mean, there’s a chance, but he would never have taken his own life.’

‘No one is saying that. He could have fallen into the water after being unwell. We won’t know anything for sure until after the post-mortem.’

Suddenly Tiff was beginning to feel out of her depth. She had no place in this conversation. She was just the officer at the scene.

‘Look, I promise that a member of CID will be in touch as soon as there’s more detail available.’

‘Okay, thank you. Can I ask how Olivia handled the identification? It couldn’t have been pleasant for her.’

‘She was spared the ordeal. Logan offered to do it in her place.’

The line went silent.

‘Esther?’

‘I’m sorry. I just had the irrational thought that James wouldn’t have liked that at all. But of course he wouldn’t have known.’

‘Why’s that?’ Tiff asked in spite of herself.

‘Because he hated the sight of that boy.’

Tiff said her goodbyes and wasn’t surprised to find that once again her stomach was in knots.

EIGHTEEN

‘You thinking that was Katie’s motive?’ Bryant asked as they got out of the car at Russells Hall Hospital.

‘Well, Judith did say that if the daughter wanted to heal, the relationship had to be forcefully and permanently ended, with no further contact possible. That’s a given now. Whatever the relationship between Katie and her mum, it was complex enough that she was seeking advice on how to deal with it. Think about Katie’s home, well, where she lived – it was hardly the space of someone well rounded and stable. It’s almost like she was waiting to develop into the person she’s going to be.’

‘And only murdering her mother could accomplish it?’ Bryant asked doubtfully.

‘It’s a theory,’ she said as they entered the hospital.

‘You really want to know why, eh, guv?’

‘Me and a jury of twelve,’ she answered. Despite the evidence, a conviction of a woman in her mid-twenties for such a brutal murder was a tough sell if they couldn’t explain why.

‘Okay, Keats, this had better be good,’ Kim said as they entered the morgue anteroom.

Jimmy was wheeling the body of Sheryl Hawne back to cold storage, and Keats was cleaning down.