The Dying Hours by Mark Billingham Page B

the same way she was? Just ahead of her or behind her, maybe?’
    ‘I’ve got no idea,’ Daniels said. ‘I only watched the bits that my mother was in.’ He raised a hand, let it drop to the tabletop again. ‘Look, obviously I’m missing something here, because you seem to be suggesting… well, I don’t know what you’re suggesting, but—’
    ‘At the time, you said you were shocked that your mother had taken her own life.’
    ‘Christ, of course I was shocked. Wouldn’t you be?’
    ‘No, more than that,’ Holland said. ‘You talked about how she’d booked a holiday. How she was the last person in the world who would do anything like that.’
    ‘Yes, she’d booked a holiday.’ Daniels drew a nicotine-stained finger slowly back and forth along the edge of the table. ‘She was a member of a gardening club and she drove to the cinema once a week. She read books and had friends and she loved her grandchildren. She had a life… she had a good life and deciding to end it like that was something I never dreamed she might do, not in a million years. None of us did. That doesn’t mean that I thought there might be any other explanation. I mean, bloody hell… it doesn’t mean I thought for one second that somebody else might have… been responsible.’
    Holland leaned forward a little and lowered his voice. ‘Look, I know this is out of the blue,’ he said. ‘But I need to tell you we’re looking at exactly that possibility.’
    ‘
Possibility?
’ Daniels opened his mouth and closed it again. ‘Based on what? Have you got evidence?’
    ‘I can’t really go into details,’ Holland said. ‘Look, I know this is a lot to take in.’
    Daniels appeared to take it in quickly enough. ‘Who?’ he asked. Then, ‘Why, for God’s sake?’
    ‘That’s something you might like to give some thought to. Maybe talk to some of her friends.’
    ‘Me?’
    Holland nodded.
Yes, because this ‘investigation’ I’m banging on about does not exactly have the biggest of teams working on it
. ‘They might be a bit more comfortable talking to you,’ he said.
    ‘This is stupid.’ Daniels shook his head. ‘She was a seventy-year-old woman, there’s no reason anyone would want to hurt her. She got on with everyone.’
    ‘We need to make sure,’ Holland said.
    ‘So, how…⁠?’ Daniels’ voice cracked. He lowered his head. ‘Do you think someone took her into the reservoir? Pushed her…⁠?’
    ‘Was your mum a strong swimmer?’
    ‘She was
seventy
, I told you. It was freezing that night. Just the shock of the water must have…’ Daniels’ voice was raised now and he pushed away tears with the heel of his hand. There were people looking across at them from other tables.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Holland said.
    ‘Are your parents still alive?’
    The affectionate father was long gone now and Holland could only sit staring at the bereaved son, whose grief was still all too real and raw. Holland had been confronted with more than his fair share of anguish over the years. He had delivered death messages, stood at hospital bedsides, watched fathers, mothers, husbands and wives break down and demand to be told what to do; told how they were ever supposed to get up in the morning again. That was work. That was what he was paid to deal with.
    But this was not his job.
    He did not have to do this, should not have let himself get talked into doing it, and at that moment he could happily have punched Tom Thorne.
     
    Thorne pulled on his jacket and watched Jacqui Gibbs pour herself a second small measure of Glenlivet.
    ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ he said.
    She shrugged. ‘Who’s going to care?’ She took a sip, then stood as she saw Thorne move towards the living-room door.
    ‘It’s fine,’ Thorne said. ‘Stay there.’
    She walked over to him anyway and they stood together, a little awkwardly, in the open doorway.
    ‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘Everything you’ve told me, I mean it’s not exactly good