‘Monica, the Zoom call never happened. Your husband died in the early hours of the morning. Your phone call didn’t prompt him to take his own life.’
She started to shake her head. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. I spoke to him last night. He was the best he’s been in a long time. I would have known if he’d been planning to—’
‘He wasn’t planning to do anything,’ Kim interrupted. ‘I can’t say too much, but we have reason to believe that Liam’s death is connected to a current investigation and that Liam didn’t take his own life.’
The colour that had been brought to her face by rage was quickly dissolved by shock.
‘You think he was murdered?’
The hope in her voice brought emotion to the back of Kim’s throat. What a thing to hope for but Kim understood it completely. He was dead and that was certain. Monica had managed to process that, but if it hadn’t been by his own hand, she could let go of the rage, the disgust, the feeling of abandonment, the blame.
Kim nodded. ‘He didn’t leave you and your son, and we will find the person responsible.’
‘B…But why?’ she asked as Kim pushed her chair back.
‘I can’t tell you any more yet, but as soon as we have any developments, you’ll be the first to know.’
Kim motioned for the constable to retake her place at the table.
She headed back to the lounge area wondering if they were barking up the wrong tree about the gay link. Maybe the fact that Jamie and Sarah were both gay was a coincidence. Perhaps there was some other link or the victims were more random than they’d thought.
The questions continued to circle around her head as she entered the room that still held the stench of blood.
Keats, Mitch and two assistants were removing Liam Sachs from the chair.
‘Wait,’ she said, standing in front of them.
She viewed the body from head to toe.
‘Got it,’ she said, turning and walking away.
She took a good deep gulp of fresh air as she removed the protective slippers.
‘Okay, guv, what have you got and do I want to catch it?’ Bryant asked as they walked to the car.
‘Footwear, Bryant. It was 1a.m. in the morning on a night that he wanted to get to bed early to prepare.’
‘Yeah, I was there.’
‘So why the hell was he wearing trainers?’
FORTY-FOUR
It was after two when Penn headed down to the cafeteria to snag them both some late lunch. Stacey had asked for whatever Betty’s special was but she secretly hoped it was the cottage pie. Whatever the woman did with that mashed potato was either illegal or too high in calories to think about.
Stacey took the opportunity of a peaceful office to make a call. She was conscious of the pile of work Penn had on his desk, but she needed to finish up what she could do about Gabe Denton and then update his wife.
Craig Denton answered on the third ring.
‘Hello,’ his voice held a question at the unknown number.
Stacey introduced herself. ‘Have you got a minute to talk?’
‘I’m between trains right now but what’s this about?’
Stacey could hear the background noise. Now was clearly not a good time, but his curiosity had won the day.
‘I’m ringing about your brother Gabriel.’