Gloomy Sunday (3/8) By Joe Hakim

(1/8), (2/8), (3/8), (4/8), (5/8), (6/8), (7/8), (8/8).

It took a while to work up the courage to go and see Kate, Mike's widow. I rang first to let her know that I was going. I'd been working as a reporter for a few years, and interviewing bereaved relatives was the one thing that I'd never been comfortable with. The fact that I'd been working with Mike for a couple of weeks made the process all the more difficult. One of my first jobs working for the paper was to interview the mother of young lad who had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I'd never forget the atmosphere when I walked in; the family just wanted to be left alone, but I had to sit and fire off a series of seemingly pointless questions, just so I had some copy to submit.

I arrived at Mike's house and I sat in my car for twenty minutes and smoked five cigarettes before I walked up to the door. I knocked and then stood on the step, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. I'd never met Mike's wife before, and this wasn't the circumstance in which I'd wanted to meet her for the first time. She opened the door slightly, looking out with narrow, sleep-deprived eyes. "Hi," I said, forcing a smile. "Ben, right?" she said, before opening the door and letting me in.

The living room was dark, curtains drawn to block out the world. Cigarette smoke hung in the air, and the whole place seemed suspended and almost serene. It was a familiar atmosphere; it reminded me of my parent's house after we got the news about my sister. "Would you like a drink?" she asked. "Coffee please, black, no sugar," I replied. She went off into the kitchen and I looked around the room.

There was a photo of Mike on the top of the telly. He was grinning, his face surrounded by a huge wispy beard and large dollop of curly hair. He looked exactly how I expected a marine biologist to look - a bit like Richard Dreyfuss' character in Jaws. Seeing him there, smiling like that, the sheer unexpectedness of his death hit home again. His wife entered the living room again. "Here you go," she said, handing me a mug. "I'm sorry about this," I said. "It's just that someone would come down here to speak to you anyway, and I thought it might be best if I did it."

"Mike mentioned you. He said you were a decent guy." "I only knew him for a couple of weeks, but we really got on with each other. I can't believe what's happened." She gave a little hollow laugh. "You can't? I've been sat here for two days banging my head on wall trying to work it out." "I hate to ask you this, but how can you be sure it was suicide?"

"He kissed me good night..." she slumped forward in her chair, putting her head in her hands. "And then he went upstairs and got in the bath. I went to see if he wanted a drink and there he was, in the water. He must have held himself under..." Kate began to cry. "Was he depressed? I mean, was there anything that indicated that he might have been thinking of taking his own life?" "You saw him - did you think he was depressed?" "No, no, not at all. It doesn't make any sense. I'm just trying to find a reason, an explanation."

Continued...Next Page (4/8)

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