Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

After expressing his condolences on their loss, Warren asked her to describe the past twenty-four hours or so, focusing particularly on her husband’s state of mind.

In a surprisingly steady voice, Lizzi Crawley described how her husband had come home early from work the previous day because he thought he was about to come down with a migraine. This confirmed what Tompkinson had said that morning.

“I got home from town with the kids at about five o’clock. Mark said that he’d returned home at about eleven a.m. but by the time he’d got in, the symptoms were fading. It does that occasionally — he gets a sort of false alarm. I guess it was triggered by all of the stress at work and when he got home the stress had gone…” Her voice trailed off as she realised that the stress clearly hadn’t gone, otherwise he wouldn’t have committed suicide. Not wanting her to dwell too deeply on this, Warren quickly prompted her to continue.

“Well, he seemed slightly hyper. He gets like that sometimes when he has had what he calls one of his near misses. He insisted that we all go out as a family for pizza, the kids’ favourite meal, and ten-pin bowling, the kids’ favourite game. It was weird, because they had only been out the week before for Ben’s birthday and done exactly the same. The night Alan was killed, as a matter of fact. I reminded him of this and he said that he just wanted a fun night out with the kids. The boys were thrilled, of course, to have their favourite treat a second time, and to be honest Mark’s been so down lately I wanted to have a fun night out with him.”

“How long had this mood lasted and what do you think caused it?” Warren asked gently.

“For the past couple of months, really. Since well before the school holidays, certainly. He just wasn’t himself. He was brooding and sometimes a bit snappy. He also didn’t sleep very well.” She motioned her head towards her sons. “As you can imagine, these three have quite a bit of energy to burn off and Mark was really good at that normally. He’d take them down the rec ground with a football or a frisbee. In the summer evenings particularly, he and a few of the local dads would get together and organise rounders or cricket matches. But over the last few weeks, he claimed to be busy or said he had a headache. The boys would usually still get a game, of course, with the other kids, but I know that one or two of the dads complained that he wasn’t pulling his weight.”

“It wasn’t as much fun without Daddy playing,” interrupted the youngest of the three boys suddenly, his voice small and heartbroken.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” crooned his mother, gently kissing the boy’s tousled head as new tears started to silently track down his cheeks.

Warren swallowed hard several times trying to remove the lump in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Warren saw Tony Sutton cover his mouth and cough theatrically, patting his chest as if he had something caught in it. Whatever it was, it appeared to be making his eyes water slightly. He sneaked a look at the family liaison officers, who sat dry-eyed yet somehow conveyed the exact amount of sympathy required without seeming patronising. Warren wondered briefly if they practised in a mirror.

“So what happened yesterday evening?”

“Well, he was back to his old self. Last week, he seemed a bit on edge. He kept on checking his mobile phone and was distracted. Last night he was full of life and affection, probably a bit too much affection, since he kept on telling the boys how special they are and how much he loved them. You know how teenage boys can be about things like that.” Marcus, the eldest, looked away, the pain on his face visible, his lower lip trembling.

Warren wondered if he was blaming himself — had he told his father to stop embarrassing him in public and now was worrying that by spurning him he had caused his suicide? Or was he just remembering the feel of his father’s arms that last time and wishing he could go back and experience it just once more? He tried to catch the boy’s eye and reassure him that it wasn’t his fault. That he wasn’t to blame, and that he knew how he felt. But the young man resolutely stared the other way.

“Well, anyway, it was a great evening and he insisted on letting the youngest boys stay up past their bedtimes — it is the school holidays after all, he said — and telling them silly jokes.

“When they finally went to bed, I was exhausted. But Mark was very, you know… affectionate .” She glanced self-consciously at her three children, blushing slightly. “We were up very late.”

“What about this morning? How was he then?” Warren couldn’t bring himself to call him ‘Mark’, it seemed too intimate, yet ‘Dr’ or ‘Mr Crawley’ was far too formal.

“It was a complete change, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me.”

Warren could see the pain written across her face, and mirrored in her children’s. “He claimed that he could feel another migraine coming on and he worried it would be a big one. He asked if I would take all the kids over to see Mum and Dad, since he needed peace and quiet. Mum and Dad live a few miles away in Shepreth and they are both getting on a bit. I go over a few times a week to be with them. We left about ten o’clock, I guess.”

She started to sob, quietly. “I shouldn’t have left him alone. I knew that something wasn’t right. All of that over-the-top jollity the night before — I thought he was trying to make up for the previous few weeks, but he wasn’t, was he? He was trying to leave us with some good memories.” She looked up at Warren and Sutton, “The reason he couldn’t look at me or the boys this morning was because he knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to kill himself.”

She locked eyes with Warren, fixing him with a stare that seemed to reach inside him and grab his very heart.

“Please, DCI Jones, I need to know why my husband killed himself. Please let us know.”

Warren nodded, unable to say anything. His knowledge of the contents of Crawley’s suicide note burned in his mind. At that moment, if he could have he would have destroyed that note, and never revealed its contents to the woman and children in front of him. They’d been through enough and, despite their remarkable fortitude so far, he feared that the letter might just be enough to destroy them.

Jones and Sutton emerged from the Turnbulls’ house and walked down the driveway. As if by mutual consent, the two men paused before turning and walking the five paces to the left and entering the Crawleys’ driveway.

“Shit.”

It wasn’t the most poetic of summations, Warren decided, but in this case Sutton had expressed both of their feelings perfectly.

“I agree entirely, Tony.” He glanced back at the house that they had just left. “We need to get to the bottom of this, not just for the sake of the case, but for that woman and those kids in there.”

Nodding grimly, Tony resumed his pace and the two men walked into the Crawleys’ drive. Most of the gawkers from across the street had gone now and the area seemed eerily quiet. Only the Scenes of Crime van and the ambulance remained. Two police constables and Alison Carmichael were the only remaining uniforms in the area, the former standing guard at the bottom of the driveway and the front door.

Carmichael was busy on her BlackBerry smartphone; seeing the arrival of the two CID officers, she stopped and called in through the front door, “Andy, can you give that tour now?”

A few seconds later CSM Andy Harrison emerged, dressed from head to toe again in a white paper forensics suit. As usual, he didn’t offer to shake hands.

“Hello again, DCI Jones, we must stop meeting like this.” The man’s cheerful demeanour again seemed slightly out of place, but Warren was nevertheless glad to see a familiar face. He’d been pleased with the speedy and professional response that he’d received earlier in the week from Harrison and his team.