‘You’ve been in there. Can’t you work it out for yourself? My husband left us. He gave up and left us.’
‘Gave up on what?’
‘Everything. Himself, us, his life.’ The tears came again, but she wiped them away angrily. ‘I’m sorry. This probably isn’t the correct response, but I’m bloody angry with him.’
Angry but not totally surprised, Kim realised.
‘Can you tell us more about Liam and what led you to this point?’ Kim asked, feeling she was going to learn more by just letting the woman speak.
‘He’s been depressed for a while. About eighteen months. Since he lost his job. Everything crashed around us. We bought this house when Liam was in retail management and I worked full-time as a teacher. This was the dream; we had it all – good jobs, a barn conversion in the countryside, our child. We were even talking about having another and then bang his job is gone a month after I’d reduced my hours to part-time. He had no warning. Just seven years’ redundancy and a pat on the back.’
She took a breath.
‘He tried so hard to get another job. He was scouring the job sites all day long. The bills started to mount up, so I went back to work full-time, which made him feel even more of a failure. I mean, he was getting interviews but just not nailing the job. His depression got worse, but I really had my fingers crossed this time.’
A fresh wave of tears spilled from her eyes.
‘This time?’ Kim asked, thinking that Liam Sachs did not fit their victim profile. Maybe she and Keats had acted too hastily. There was something else nagging at the back of her mind; something about the scene she’d just left that she should have registered.
‘You said this time,’ Kim prompted for her to continue as the constable set down three mugs of tea with a sugar bowl and spoon.
‘He had a second interview this morning. It was a Zoom call for a position in Birmingham, good money but longer hours. He was really excited. He told me last night that he had a really good feeling that things were about to go our way. He was really chipper. I joked that I should go away more often. He just seemed so sure of this one.’
‘May I ask where you were last night, Monica?’
‘In Chester, new sales system training at the software company. I should still be there, but when I couldn’t get Liam on the phone, I came straight back.
‘His Zoom was at 9 a.m. so I waited until ten to be sure it was over. My hope was fading because I knew if it was good news he would have called me immediately. Even so, I was still too late. It must have gone badly and he did this to himself soon afterward. Unless…’ A look of horrified panic contorted her features. ‘What if I drove him to it? Maybe my phone call prompted him to do it because he just couldn’t face giving me another disappointment.’
‘I don’t think that’s the case at all,’ Kim said, knowing that the Zoom meeting had never taken place. But there was more that she needed.
‘Can you tell me what time you spoke last night?’
‘Not sure, around elevenish. We Facetimed for about fifteen minutes. Liam was tired and wanted to get off to bed to be fresh for the interview.’
And yet he was still fully clothed at around 1a.m., Kim thought.
Again, a little niggle came into her mind. She’d missed something. She knew it.
‘Just one more thing for now and then we’ll give you some peace.’
Monica nodded as exhaustion did battle with the grief.
‘Why was your son not here with his father?’
‘Liam wanted to focus solely on the interview. He wanted the night to himself to prepare. He suggested Joey go to my mom’s. He knew that if Joey was here he’d spend the whole night playing with him. He didn’t want to be distracted. He just wanted to be totally ready and have nothing go wrong.’
Kim nodded her understanding as the woman’s eyes filled with fresh tears.
‘How the hell am I going to tell a three-year-old boy that his daddy is gone, that he bailed when things got tough, that he didn’t love us…?’
‘It’s not true, Monica,’ Kim said, stopping her in her tracks.
‘Of course it is. You saw what he did to himself.’
‘I know you’re angry, and it might be your anger that’s holding you together right now, but I’m going to tell you something that’s going to put that anger out of your head.’
Monica dabbed at her eyes with a look of disbelief.