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though she was in possession of a set of keys, so perhaps her brother had lived in hope.
    ‘Roger has a daughter, you know,’ said Mrs Laws. ‘Ella. She lives in Spain.’
    There was a definite emphasis there.
She
lives in Spain. The daughter had much more sense than to be here in Forest Fields.
    ‘I’m sure she’s been informed,’ said Villiers.
    ‘Yes, she knows what’s happened. She’s flying over tomorrow.’
    Cooper was surprised to see that Fay Laws was crying. Quietly, unobtrusively, but the tears were definitelycreeping down her cheeks. She wiped them away with a damp-looking tissue.
    ‘It feels like a punishment,’ she said suddenly.
    ‘What does?’
    ‘Roger’s death. The way he died. As if he’s punishing those of us left behind. Punishing
me
, anyway.’
    Cooper and Villiers exchanged glances. They could both see what was happening. Mrs Laws hadn’t cared enough about her brother for the past ten years and now she was feeling the full, devastating impact of guilt.
    ‘Did your brother ever mention having suicidal thoughts?’ asked Villiers.
    ‘Once or twice he said that he wished it was all over, that he didn’t have to go on. It was only when he’d been having a particularly bad week. So I didn’t think he meant it. People say things they don’t mean all the time, don’t they?’
    ‘Yes, that’s true.’
    ‘Well, I suppose I should have taken more notice. I ought to have told him to get help, to speak to someone about the way he felt. But I never did. I was so sure he wasn’t serious. That means it’s partly my fault, doesn’t it? I let him down.’
    ‘There’s always a feeling of guilt in these cases,’ said Cooper. ‘People who commit suicide get rid of the pain by leaving it behind for everyone else.’
    She looked at him then, calmer on the surface but with something flickering uncertainly behind her eyes.
    ‘Well, he’s done that,’ she said. ‘He’s certainly done that with me.’
    Slowly,they went through the rooms. The place was untidy but in a lived-in sort of way. Newspapers had been left in a pile on the floor by an armchair. In the kitchen, dishes had been washed but left to dry. Only one bedroom had been in use, the duvet thrown back on the bed for the last time, a washing basket full of clothes that would never be washed.
    Cooper picked up a photograph. ‘Is this your brother’s wife?’
    ‘
Was
his wife,’ said Mrs Laws. ‘Yes, that’s Natalie.’
    ‘She’s been dead for ten years, you said?’
    ‘That’s right. I didn’t like her much, but she was good for him. She kept him on the straight and narrow.’
    ‘Really? You’re suggesting he went off the straight and narrow when she died?’
    Mrs Laws shook her head vigorously. ‘Roger changed, that’s all I mean. He lost touch with his family and friends.’
    Cooper wondered if that had been Farrell’s own choice. Or was it the other way round – his family and friends had gradually dropped all contact with him? It was probably academic, unless something in Farrell’s own behaviour had been the reason for the split.
    He put the photo back. He’d recognised Natalie Farrell from the picture her husband had with him in his car when he died. Two couples, one of them a younger Roger Farrell and this woman, no doubt taken in happier times. He might have lost contact with the rest of his family but he’d still remembered his dead wife. As he used his exit bag, had he been thinkingabout her death in that crash in fog on the motorway? There was no way of telling. No way of knowing what went through someone’s mind as they died.
    In the sitting room, Cooper automatically checked the mantelpiece over a blocked-up fireplace. It was the traditional place to leave a note. But there was nothing except a thin layer of dust.
    A thick folder and a laptop were on a table in the dining area. Cooper opened the laptop and switched it on. He saw it was password-protected. He would have to pass it on to the high-tech