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The door was answered by a woman in her mid- to late forties with tied-back blonde hair. Her eyes were immediately suspicious.
‘May I help you?’ she asked as the fresh scent of lavender travelled through the house towards him.
‘Janice Sharpe?’
She nodded.
He took out his ID. ‘DS Penn. May I come in?’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Your husband.’
She hesitated before moving aside for him to enter.
He stepped to the left into a small lounge that was made all the smaller by the ironing board and piles of clothing scattered around the room.
‘Feel free to have a seat, if you can find one,’ she said, taking her position behind the ironing board. ‘I can’t stop. These are all due back today.’
Close to each pile of clothes was either a laundry basket or a bag with a handwritten tag on it. Clearly it was how the woman made a living.
‘Out with it. What’s he done this time? And whatever he owes I can’t pay it. We’re divorced.’
‘Mrs Sharpe, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Your husband died a few days ago.’
‘Wh…what?’ she asked, setting the iron upright.
‘He suffered a brain aneurism and died in the Stourbridge underpass.’
She just stared at him as though he was speaking a foreign language.
‘What was he doing there?’
‘It’s where he was living. Your husband has been homeless for the last couple of years.’
A shadow of regret passed over her face but she shook it away. ‘So that’s why no one could find him.’
‘You reported him missing?’ he asked.
‘Only because my daughter, our daughter, insisted. In all honesty I didn’t care where he was.’
That explained the lack of follow-up calls.
He noted that the woman hadn’t sat down but hadn’t continued ironing yet. It was as though some part of her wanted to react to the news but another part of her wouldn’t allow it.
‘Did he suffer?’ she asked, staring beyond him and out of the window.
‘I don’t think so,’ Penn, answered, feeling it was the kindest thing to say. The man had died alone in a rubbish-infested, urine-stained underpass.
‘I didn’t know he was homeless,’ she said. ‘When he disappeared, I assumed he was couch surfing, to keep out of the way. I didn’t want him back. It was a good job he didn’t come back then or I’d have killed him myself.’
Her gaze fell on the mountainous piles of ironing yet to do. It galvanised her into action and she took hold of the iron again.
Penn wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected. His task was complete. The homeless man had a name and his family had been notified. And yet his curiosity got the better of him.
‘May I ask what led to your husband becoming homeless?’
‘The same thing that led to his wife and daughter being put in that position. It was a bet, Officer. He was a gambler. I always knew it but it grew worse and worse. I thought I was being clever in controlling the purse strings, so that I could make sure everything got paid on time, but maybe I did it all wrong. Maybe if he’d had more money…’ Her words trailed away as though she’d processed the ‘what if’ scenarios a hundred times. ‘But I didn’t. He found a group of extreme gamblers online. It went from horses to dogs to just about anything.’
