‘We’d better get going then.’ He stood up.

She winced when she looked at his eye. The white was pooled with red, a subconjunctival haemorrhage. The lid was swollen and the bridge of his nose was also bruised. He had taken quite the thump. She wondered why he did it to himself, why he would go out looking for trouble. It wasn’t the first time he had turned up at work with a black eye or a broken rib.

‘Tell me the truth. Did you go out looking for a fight?’

‘Not this time, no.’ He walked out before she could respond.

His eye wasn’t the only thing that was bruised, so was his ego.

She grabbed the list of queries she had written about the Norris case and followed him outside. He was already sitting in the car, already smoking a cigarette. She waited outside for him to finish before getting in. Somehow, they had gone from their previous conversation to not speaking and she wasn’t even sure why. What had she said that upset him?

She handed him his sunglasses. ‘You’d better wear these when we speak to them; you look pretty bad.’

They got to Owen Sager’s house and knocked on the door. A woman answered immediately, a haunted look on her face, hollow and empty. She was in pain and you could feel it; she was transmitting her pain to anyone who would take some of it from her, release her from this burden. Imogen had seen it before in parents who had lost their children.

‘Mrs Sager?’ Imogen said.

‘Can I help you?’ Mrs Sager replied, an emptiness in her voice.

‘We’re currently working on a case that may or may not be connected to your son’s death. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind answering some questions?’ Imogen said.

‘What do you mean, connected?’ Mrs Sager asked, visibly surprised, pulled from her trancelike melancholy.

‘His philosophy professor, Doctor Norris, was murdered yesterday, which we believe was an anniversary of sorts,’ Adrian said.

‘I found my son exactly three months ago yesterday.’ Mrs Sager looked down and Imogen noticed she was holding a small piece of fabric in her hands, like a comforter. Probably something of Owen’s.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss. There probably is no connection, but it warrants a discussion,’ Imogen said.

‘What’s left to discuss?’ Mrs Sager scrunched the fabric in her closed fist.

‘Did your son give you any indication as to what he was stressed about?’ Adrian asked.

‘He seemed happy. I thought he was OK.’ Her eyes widened, letting even more emptiness in.

‘Nothing changed in the days before his …’ Adrian tailed off.

‘Suicide,’ Imogen finished. They had been told in plenty of seminars how important it was not to mince your words around families of grieving victims. Don’t use words like passed away, say dead. Make it real.

‘Yes, he had begun to act erratically in the weeks before, but I thought it was just all the extra work he was having to do. The police told me that it was probably depression. He may have planned his suicide for some time. He never said there was anything wrong.’ She pulled at the edges of the fabric again.