Janet Baxter looks as you might imagine someone who has just discovered that their husband of nigh-on twenty years has just done himself in would look. Her round face is puffy and red from crying and she’s hovering precariously somewhere between shock and full-blown hysteria. I feel for Janet: I’ve been there too, and it ain’t a nice place to be. ‘Can I get you some coffee, or a tea perhaps? She shakes her head. ‘Is there anyone I can call for you, Janet? Anyone you’d like to be here with you?’ She continues to shake her head.

‘There is no way my Nigel would have done this,’ she hiccups, pulling her coat around her solid frame in an obvious bid to comfort herself. ‘We’ve got two beautiful children, our youngest has only just started secondary school, and Lara, Lara’s halfway through her GCSEs… Those kids were his life; we were his life. He was happy… no, no I won’t have this… my Nige would never have taken his own life!’

I try not to say too much at this point, I just let Janet speak, or shriek; let her vent, release some of the anguish, frustration and pain that’s visibly tearing through her like a tornado. I can see she’s in denial, the early stage of disbelief when she’s heard the words but they’ve yet to sink in. I know that stage: it’s fucking painful. But worse, I know the real anguish is yet to come.

‘When did you last see your husband, Janet?’

‘Before he left for work yesterday morning. He kissed me goodbye.’

‘Did you notice anything unusual, any cause for concern?

‘No. Nothing, nothing at all. He seemed in a good mood, normal… just Nigel… but when he didn’t come home that evening… well, naturally I panicked. Nigel often travels for work, mainly to Japan and the US, but those trips are planned in advance and he always, always makes me aware of them,’ she splutters. ‘We’ve been together over two decades,’ she says, pain evident in her voice, ‘and Nige has never, ever not once come home without telling me first… without calling.’

I nod, understanding as she goes on to tell me, through mucusy sobs, that they would’ve celebrated their twentieth anniversary next week and that they were planning a big family gathering at their Chelsea home.

‘Instead’, she says, ‘I’ll be planning his burial now,’ and finally breaks down.

The female PC with me, Jill Murray, who looks young enough to be Janet’s daughter, attempts to comfort her, but it seems futile – and all three of us know it. Still, Janet seems like a nice, unremarkable kind of woman: your average middle-aged, stay-at-home wife and mother, devoted to her husband and kids, putting herself last in the process. I feel for the woman because we both know – though it’s of course unspoken – that after today her life will never be the same again and that everything she has known is going to irrevocably change. And she never asked for any of it.

I broach my questions with gentle consideration, wishing I didn’t have to ask. ‘Janet, can you offer any explanation as to why Nigel might have been occupying the penthouse suite at La Reymond hotel? Did he tell you he was going to be there? Was there any indication that he was suffering from depression, you know, lack of appetite, unusual behaviour, loss of libido? Was he under pressure at work? Did he have any financial issues, family or health problems? Had he lost a loved one recently?’

Each question is met with a resounding ‘no’.

‘My Nige loved his food and he loved his job, even if it was a little stressful at times, but then whose isn’t?’ she asks.

I like her for that. Even now she’s considering others. But now I have to ask the question I really don’t want to ask, the one that always sends the wives into an even darker abyss. ‘Janet, could Nigel have been having an affair?’

She breaks down again, crumples like paper in front of me, almost shrinks before my eyes.

Hazard of the job.

‘No! No… I don’t think so…’ Her face reddens. ‘We were happily married Detective, in every sense, even though… well… the honeymoon phase had long since passed.’

I nod, manage a small smile.

‘We got on well, rarely argued. We were happy.’

I tell her about the note and she cries harder; I don’t tell her about the champagne, the teddy bear, the smell of perfume or the towel. I’m judging this one on a need-to-know basis.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to tell the kids,’ she says, as much to herself as to me. And I nod again and give her the spiel about family liaison and victim support, and ask Jill to provide her with whatever she needs. Only, what Janet Baxter really needs is for Nigel Baxter not to have topped himself.

---

‘I want his computer checked by forensics, his phone records gone through, his schedule scrutinised,’ I tell the team back in the incident room. ‘I want to dig deep into Baxter’s life, find out his movements, find out what, or whom he’s been hiding. We need to wait for the inquest outcome, but in the meantime I want CCTV from the hotel, and the staff questioned.’ There are nods and murmurs from the team as they gear themselves up for business. Suicides usually leave an open verdict, but there’s something, besides his adamant wife, about Nigel Baxter that tells me that something is not quite right, that things are not as they seem in this case.

And I do like to be right.