‘She must have told you why she’d been in such a state, though?’ Joe couldn’t imagine that Lorna would have left her toddler and made the trek to Kimmerston without a good reason.
‘Not really, and only indirectly. It was something to do with Thomas’s father.’
‘Do you know who the father was?’ In his head, Joe was muttering a prayer to the God of his childhood, to the God of his lay preacher grandfather.
Olivia shook her head. ‘No, that was always a complete mystery. One of Lorna’s big secrets. I knew she was besotted with the guy, but she’d never really talked about him. Not in any detail, even at the beginning when she first told me. Just the things we all say when we’re first in love – that he was gentle, supportive, that he’d make a perfect father.’ A pause. ‘Something must have happened between the frantic early phone call and Lorna turning up on my doorstep. When she got here, she’d stopped panicking. It was almost as if she was more worried about me than I was about her. I found myself talking about the shit night I’d had and the stress of being stretched too thin, and no time to care properly for my women.’
‘She didn’t give any indication of what was worrying her?’ This was one of the most frustrating interviews Joe had ever conducted.
‘She said she’d been having problems with Thomas’s dad. He was being a rat and freaking her out big style. I assumed he was ducking out of his responsibilities, that he’d decided he wanted nothing more to do with her and Thomas. That was the impression she gave. I think she must have become dependent on him, since setting up home on her own.’
‘But Lorna wasn’t so anxious when she arrived here later that Thursday morning?’
‘No, she said she’d talked him round. It was all okay after all. She thought she must have taken a couple of his comments out of context.’ Olivia looked up. ‘I think he was stringing her along and she was believing what she wanted to believe. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Even if we know in our hearts that our lover doesn’t care any more, that they’ve moved on, we’re so desperate to be with them that we persuade ourselves that they’re telling the truth. But most of us grow out of that stuff. I thought she was still infatuated and I told her so.’
‘What happened then? How did you leave it?’
Olivia didn’t answer immediately. ‘Perhaps I hadn’t been very tactful. It certainly wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She said I didn’t have a clue what was going on, I didn’t know the man and I didn’t know what she had to lose.’ The midwife hesitated again. ‘You have to understand that I was shattered, dealing with my own shit. I wasn’t even concentrating properly on what she was saying. I’m not proud of what I said next.’
Again, Joe said nothing and waited for her to go on.
‘I told her not to be a drama queen. I told her if she wanted to keep the relationship secret, that was up to her, but she couldn’t expect me to help if I didn’t know all the details. She got up and stormed off.’
There was a moment of silence before Olivia continued. ‘I went to the door and called after her. I offered her a lift back to Kirkhill. Goodness knows when the next bus would be. She shouted back that she didn’t need a lift. Her bloke had arranged to pick her up in Kimmerston.’
‘By her bloke she meant the father of her child?’
‘Aye, well, that was what I took her to mean.’ Olivia looked up at him again. ‘I didn’t know whether that was true or whether she just wanted to prove to me that he was a good man, that he’d put himself out for her.’
Outside, a young woman walked past the window, with a baby in a buggy. She waved in at Olivia, who lifted a hand in return.
‘I was too tired to care by then. I told myself she was an adult and she should be allowed to make her own mistakes. I couldn’t be responsible for her. I had my own stuff to worry about.’ She put her head in her hands. It was as if it were too heavy to be supported by her neck. ‘If I’d been more careful how I spoke to her, if I’d listened, properly listened, she might still be alive.’
Joe wasn’t sure how to answer that. He didn’t think easy words would help her. ‘Until we find Lorna’s killer, we can’t know why she died. There seemed to be a lot going on in her life.’ He thought he should end the interview; the midwife needed to sleep. It wasn’t fair to keep her talking. He’d always thought his work carried huge responsibilities but he couldn’t imagine what her working life might be like. Still, Lorna was dead and they were no closer to finding her killer. ‘There’s nothing else you can think of that might help identify her boyfriend? Might she have spoken to anyone else in the group?’
Olivia shook her head. ‘There was always something reserved about her. She never properly engaged emotionally. I had the impression she didn’t really get on with her parents, with her father at least. She said something like: I never really knew him.’
‘She liked her teacher though. Connie Browne.’
‘Yeah.’ Olivia smiled. ‘She thought Connie was brilliant. She never judges and you always know where you are with her. That was what she said.’
‘So, a kind of surrogate mother, do you
