The house was small, boxy, in a curling crescent of other small, boxy houses. It looked like a place where if dreams didn’t necessarily die, they were comprehensively contained.
‘So, er, you didn’t have any, any idea he was, you know, your husband, dressing up in, like, women’s clothing?’ Sperring was leading the questioning. Phil wanted to show there were no hard feelings. But Sperring was uncomfortable and he was letting it show. Phil took a sliver of unprofessional satisfaction from that.
The woman sitting opposite them looked like she was in shock. Eyes wide and staring, red-rimmed from the ghosts of tears. Face so pale it could have been bleached. Expression blank, like she had suffered so much pain it had left her numb. Phil recognised her reactions; he had given the death message to relatives before. But that didn’t mean it ever got any easier.
Kimberley Penman, the family liaison officer, sat on the other armchair in the room. She had broken the news to Julie McGowan before they had arrived. It had gone down as well as could be expected. Which wasn’t well at all.
Julie McGowan managed to make eye contact with both of them for a few brief seconds, then looked away. ‘I don’t… It’s like… I’m being punished. I just… just don’t understand…’
Sperring sat back, looking physically exhausted. He gave Phil the nod. Phil leaned forward, voice low, eyes solicitous. ‘We know this is a difficult time for you, Mrs McGowan, Julie, but if there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all that might give us some clue as to why your husband… that might have contributed to your husband’s state of mind, please tell us.’
Julie McGowan looked like she was about to burst into tears once more, but she stopped herself, shook her head. Her hands unconsciously twisted a paper tissue into fluttery, powdery pieces. ‘He never told me,’ she said. ‘That he used to like dressing up. And then…’ she sighed, ‘I found out. Came home early, caught him doing it.’ Another sigh. ‘Almost a cliché, isn’t it?’
‘But you stayed with him,’ said Phil, keeping eye contact, ‘didn’t you, Julie? You stayed with him. Tried to work it out.’
She nodded. ‘For the kids. I started thinking it was my fault. I was doing something wrong, failing in some way, that it was my fault, I was being punished…’ Another sigh that threatened to turn into a sob. She controlled herself. ‘But then I realised no, it wasn’t me. It was him. And I tried to understand, to let him go out to his… things. Clubs and that. I tried.’
‘Did you think he was gay, was that it?’ Sperring chipped in. Phil stared at him.
‘I… I hoped not. But… I don’t know. He said that when he was Amanda – that was his name for, for that – when he was Amanda, he thought like a woman. Felt like a woman. So…’ Another sigh.
She fell into silence. Phil glanced round. The house looked ordinary. Stiflingly so. Department store furniture and decoration, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing too different. At least on the surface. But he knew, after years of doing this, that there was no such thing as normal. The fact that he was here was testament to that.
‘Your husband moved out,’ he said. ‘When was that?’
‘About… I don’t know. A year? Something like that? A year ago.’ She put her head back, thought. ‘Yes. Just after Christmas last year. This would have been the kids’ second Christmas without him…’
A sob threatened to choke her up. Phil kept questioning, keeping her focused.
‘Where did he go, d’you know?’
‘He… he rented a flat.’
‘Here? In Coventry?’
She nodded. The tissue came in for more punishment.
Sperring leaned forward. ‘So why did he move to Birmingham?’
She looked straight at him. ‘I don’t know. We weren’t… He didn’t tell me everything.’ She sighed. ‘He was slipping away by then. I’d almost lost him.’ Another sigh. Another twist of the tissue. ‘I’ve sent the kids to my mother’s,’ she continued. ‘God knows what’s going to happen to them when they go back to school, what the other kids’ll say…’
‘Kids can be cruel, Julie,’ said Phil, ‘but they’re resilient. Keep that in mind.’
She nodded. The paper tissue disintegrated further.
‘Was there anyone he mentioned, any name that sticks out?’ Phil asked.
She said nothing, lost in her own world.
‘Someone in Birmingham he might have moved to be nearer to?’
She looked up. ‘There was that university thing he was doing.’
Sperring and Phil exchanged a glance. ‘What university thing?’ asked Phil.
‘A book that some professor was doing. He wanted to speak to…’ she gestured, throwing the tissue around, ‘you know. People like Glenn. Ones that were…’
‘Transvestites?’ asked Sperring.
She nodded. ‘That. And others. Ones that… weren’t right. Deviant psychopathology, Glenn said.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Said it was going to make him famous.’
Phil frowned. ‘How come?’
‘Because it was that… him. That professor from the telly. The handsome one. Always got plenty to say. You know the one.’
‘From Birmingham?’ asked Sperring.
Julie nodded.
‘Hugo Gwilym?’ said Sperring.
‘That’s him,’ she said.
‘And he was interviewing Glenn for a book? What kind of book? Case studies?’
‘You’d have to ask him that.’
Phil made a note. ‘We will.’ He frowned once more, leaned further forward. ‘Would there have been anyone else he might have moved for? To be closer to? It seems quite drastic to go all that way just to be in a book.’
‘There…’ More tissue abuse. ‘I didn’t… didn’t want him to talk about it. Didn’t want to know. There might have been.’ Grief and revulsion were fighting for prominence on her features.
‘Can you tell us who? Give us a name, even?’
Julie sighed, steeling herself to revisit unpleasant memories. ‘I found him on a website one night, a website for… for people like him. He was talking to men. Other men like himself, but also men who… who liked that kind of thing. Who met transvestites for sex.’
‘Any names?’ asked Sperring.
She shook her head. ‘I… No, I…’ She looked up. ‘One. Yes. Ben, I think he called him. Ben. Yes.’
Phil had his notebook out. ‘Ben? Last name?’
Julie almost laughed. ‘This is the internet. Lucky to get a first name. And even then it might not be a real one.’
‘We’ve got his laptop,’ said Phil. ‘Would we be able to find this Ben through the website?’
She nodded. ‘He never used a password. Always kept it open. Like he wanted me to find it. Like he was doing wrong but was too weak to stop. Like he wanted to be punished because of it.’
‘And he met this Ben, did he?’
‘A few times. It was one of the main reasons I asked him to leave. Not just because of what he was doing to me and the kids, or the fact that I couldn’t get my head round it, but what he was bringing back into the house. What he was picking up from these… people.’
‘D’you know if it was just the one?’ asked Sperring. ‘Were there any others?’
‘There were others. But Ben was the main one. Apparently they always met in a bar on Hurst Street in Birmingham. Or a club, some club he went to round there.’ She paused. Looked down at the tissue. ‘Was… was it… D’you think it was this Ben who killed him? He was murdered, wasn’t he?’
‘He was,’ said Phil.
‘How… Did he suffer?’ Her voice sounded like it had been dropped from a great height.
‘He…’ Phil didn’t know what to say.
‘He went peacefully,’ said Sperring. ‘I don’t think he suffered.’
‘Thank you.’ Julie McGowan nodded.
Phil looked at Sperring, surprised by his tact. The DS didn’t make eye contact.
They stood up. The FLO did likewise.
‘This is… I’m sorry,’ said Phil, ‘but could we ask you to come and make an identification of the body? As next of kin it should be you, I’m afraid.’
She nodded without speaking.
‘Thank you. Kim’s your family liaison officer. Would you like her to come along?’
‘If you like,’ Julie said, looking up. ‘But to be honest, I lost my husband ages ago. This is just… confirming he won’t be back.’ The tissue was no more.
They left the house in darkness.