Free Dark as Night by Katherine Pathak

now, but you’re right. Nathan wouldn’t want a murderer to be loose out there because of his secret. He’d want to protect other men.’
                  ‘Would you be prepared to make a formal statement about this?’
                  She nodded. ‘Aye, as long as I don’t have to face Jenny McLaren, I would.’
     
    *
     
    DCI Bevan had left it for as long as she could before speaking with Jenny McLaren. Unfortunately, the woman insisted on seeing her husband’s body. A car was sent out to Giffnock to pick her up and ferry her to the headquarters. Bevan suggested that she bring a friend or relative with her, but not one of the boys.
                  Jenny was accompanied by a lady who looked to be a good decade older. She introduced herself as Helen, a neighbour of the McLarens.
                  Dani took Jenny’s arm and led her into a small room, where she could observe Nathan’s body through a glass screen. The pathologist had done the best job he could. The head had been carefully positioned so that only one side was visible.
                  Mrs McLaren gasped when she saw him. ‘Why is his skin that colour?’
                  ‘Your husband was in the water for several days.’
                  ‘Is that what happens then – when a body’s been dead for a while?’
                  Dani laid a hand on her arm. ‘Yes. Would you like to be left alone?’
                  Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t want to remember him like that.’
                  The DCI led her out. They headed towards the relatives’ room. Alice had been instructed to take the neighbour elsewhere for a coffee. Dani helped Jenny into a seat.
                  ‘I need to ask you some more questions.’
                  Jenny looked up, her expression blank. ‘What about?’
                  Normally, Dani would have held the woman’s hand at this point, but in this instance, she didn’t feel it would help. ‘As a result of our inquiries, we have reason to suspect that your husband was meeting someone in Balgray Park on the evening he was killed.’
                  ‘Who was he meeting – what for?’
                  Dani wasn’t sure if the woman was being deliberately bloody-minded. She cleared her throat. ‘I’ve spoken with Nathan’s therapist, who confirmed that your husband had been battling with his homosexual urges for quite some time.’
                  Jenny’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘You think he was meeting up with a man.’
                  ‘Had it happened before?’
                  ‘I don’t know.’ She hugged her thin arms around that bony frame. ‘I found a magazine that was full of pictures of men, you know, in compromising positions. This was about six months ago. It was in his briefcase. I confronted him about it. That was around the time that I stopped sleeping with him. I was humiliated. It felt as if he was thinking about those disgusting men I’d seen in the magazine whilst he was making love to me. I couldn’t bear it. Eventually, I agreed to go to the counsellor with him. But for the first couple of sessions it seemed like the process was all for his benefit. The therapist was full of sympathy for Nathan and how he’d had to suppress his true desires for all these years. It was as if our twenty years of marriage meant nothing.’
                  ‘So you stopped attending the sessions and Nathan carried on alone.’
                  Jenny clasped her hands together, absent-mindedly twisting her wedding ring. This action reminded Dani of what had happened to her husband’s. ‘I believe that Nathan had already made his mind up about the future. Now I’d found out the truth he could finally live the life he’d always wanted.’ She looked up, her eyes full