‘We can talk right here, if you’d prefer.’
Mrs Mills looked around the street as a front door over the road opened.
‘Diana,’ her husband said.
‘Oh, come in,’ she said, stepping aside.
The man held out his hand. ‘Stuart Mills.’
Bryant shook his hand. ‘We’re sorry for your loss.’
Stuart Mills was a bear of a man who towered over his wife.
‘In here,’ Diana said, pointing once again to the room Kim had been in yesterday.
Diana stood next to the fireplace, but Stuart pointed to a chair. ‘Please sit.’
The three of them sat, but Diana stubbornly remained standing.
‘Mr and Mrs Mills, I’m afraid we have some news about the investigation into your son’s death.’
‘What investigation?’ Diana asked, looking from Kim to her husband in a ‘why didn’t I know about this?’ kind of way.
‘Any sudden death warrants investigation,’ Bryant explained. ‘Even if initial findings suggest suicide.’
‘Initial?’ Stuart asked, listening to every word.
‘Yes, I’m sorry to have to add to your pain, but we don’t believe that Jamie took his own life,’ Kim confirmed.
‘An accident?’ Stuart asked with disbelief.
Kim shook her head. ‘We believe someone else was involved.’
‘M…Murder?’ he asked.
‘That’s preposterous,’ Diana exploded, finally moving forward and taking a seat. ‘I told you yesterday that he had quiet times, that he was broody, unpredictable.’
‘He may have been all of those things, but he didn’t take his own life. Someone else was responsible for the death of your son.’
Disbelief contorted both of their faces, and Kim felt the situation was surreal. They’d had no problem believing it was suicide – normally a difficult and painful fact for family members to accept, but with these two it was the other way around.
‘But you can’t be sure?’ she asked, looking to Bryant as though he would give her a different answer.
‘We’re as sure as we need to be to open a full-on murder investigation,’ Bryant responded.
‘A what?’ Diana asked as abject horror shaped her mouth. ‘Don’t we have any say?’
Kim’s mind went to the link she’d been sent by Stacey.
She no longer felt bad for the absence of empathy towards this woman. Whether the same applied to her husband she couldn’t yet be sure.
‘No, I’m sorry but you can’t stop a murder investigation,’ Kim said.
‘But he’s our son,’ she said proprietarily.
‘Why would you not want to know who killed your son and for his murderer to be brought to justice?’ Kim asked as cordially as she could manage.
‘The press, the papers, the news. I mean none of it is going to bring him back, is it?’