by Ann Cleeves
As Vera was pulling away from Percy’s bungalow she was met by a car driving down the track towards Gilswick. Nigel Lucas. Maybe he was just on his way to the village to pick up the Sunday papers, but it seemed like a sign. Lorraine would be in the house on her own.
It took Lorraine a while to open the farmhouse door, and she was still in her nightclothes with a dressing gown pulled over the top. It was the first time Vera had seen her without make-up and she looked grey and very tired.
‘I’m sorry.’ Vera was sympathetic, but she was inside the door already, taking no chances. ‘I got you out of your bed. I wanted to chat to you on your own.’
‘What’s this about? Your sergeant was here yesterday to take statements. We told him everything we know about that poor woman dying.’
‘Shall I put the kettle on? Make us some tea?’ Vera walked through to the kitchen, letting the woman follow. There was a granite breakfast bar with ridiculously high stools. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to hoist herself onto them. Or get off, once she was there. ‘Let’s take the tea up to your studio, shall we? We know we won’t be interrupted there. Why don’t you lead the way?’
Lorraine shrugged. She seemed to have no fight in her. Vera wondered if that was down to the illness or the cure. They walked up the polished wooden stairs to a landing with a view of the hall and the kitchen, and then Lorraine pushed open a door into her studio. It was the size of a double bedroom, with one long window looking north towards the hill. An easel and a set of white-painted cupboards. The scrubbed pine table that Susan had described. Along one wall a chaise longue in faded grey velour. ‘I noticed that, in the Kimmerston saleroom when we first moved up here,’ Lorraine said. ‘Nigel saw that I liked it and went to the auction and bid for it. A surprise, until it was delivered.’ She paused for a beat. ‘He’s such a kind man.’
‘Is that why you haven’t told him you’re ill? Worried he’ll kill you with kindness?’ Vera took a seat on a chair that looked as if it had once belonged to a teacher in a village school. Lorraine sank onto the chaise longue.
‘How did you know?’
‘We poke around into everyone’s business in a murder inquiry. That’s our job. Not all the secrets we dig up are relevant to the investigation, but we can’t ignore them.’ From her seat Vera could see into the back gardens of the houses on each side. Janet was feeding her hens. Annie was hanging washing on her line. It occurred to her that Lorraine had kept the secret of her illness because nothing else could be hidden here. She had so little control over what was going on in her body; at least she could take control of the how and when she shared information about being ill.
‘I told Nigel when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer.’ Lorraine gave a little smile. ‘I couldn’t really hide it from him; he found the lump, dragged me off to the GP.’
‘That was before you moved here?’
‘It was what prompted the move. Nigel’s business had grown since he first started it. I thought he liked the success, setting up branches all over the country. Then, when I was ill, he decided to sell up. “Someone’s made me an offer I can’t refuse, Lorrie. Let’s call it a day and give ourselves a bit of quality time.” I was going through chemo and didn’t have the energy to think it through. So I said: why not? A move to the country, more time to paint. All that sounded great to me.’
‘Did it live up to expectations?’
‘At first. Nigel loved planning the renovations to the house. Now, I’m not sure. He’s used to the challenge of problems at work. Having the power to take decisions.’ She looked at Vera. ‘He’s just been accepted to be a magistrate. He’ll be good, I think. He’s got all the right experience. That might help give his day a bit of focus and make him feel more useful. I encouraged him to give it a go. At the moment I can tell he’s bored, fidgety, looking for projects. He doesn’t say, because he knows I love it here. It’s a beautiful place to die.’
‘When did you find out that the illness had come back?’
‘Six months ago. I still had to go for regular checks. At first everything seemed fine; then it seemed that, despite the surgery, they hadn’t got rid of the tumour. It’s spread. It’s just moved into my spine. They’ve offered more chemo, but there’s no chance of a complete cure. I’d just be buying a bit more time. I feel remarkably well at the moment, and I’d much rather enjoy the life that I have than keep dragging back to the hospital for unpleasant treatments. Inconvenient and time-consuming, and taking more than the life I’d gain.’
Vera thought she’d probably have made the same decision. ‘But you decided not to tell Nigel?’
‘He’d be devastated. And as you said, he’d kill me with his fussing. I will tell him, but when I’ve reached a state when I can’t pretend any longer.’
‘Isn’t it a strain, all this pretence?’
Lorraine gave a little laugh. ‘All couples pretend about something. We’d go mad if we were honest all the time. Successful relationships are made up of white lies, small attempts at flattery, aren’t they? We want our partners to be happy, so we tell them the stories they want to hear.’
There was a sound in the house below. The front door opening. ‘That’ll be Nigel back from the village. You won’t tell him, will you?’
‘Not unless I have to.’ Vera couldn’t see how Lorraine’s illness could be relevant to the inquiry, except that it gave an insight into a relationship she’d previously struggled to understand.
They went downstairs together. Nigel was still in the hall. ‘I was just showing the inspector my studio,’ Lorraine said. ‘She was wondering what I might see from the window. I told her only the neighbours’ gardens.’
The words came easily. She even sounder brighter, less tired. Vera hoped that the other residents of Valley Farm weren’t such proficient liars. Otherwise she shouldn’t believe anything that she’d been told.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Holly had moths on her mind. She’d been reading up about them in the brief time she’d had at home the night before. Sitting on the sofa with her laptop on her knee, drinking mugs of camomile tea, she’d stared at photos. There were huge creatures as big as butterflies, brightly coloured and fascinating, tiny micros that you could only identify by studying their genitalia under a microscope. It had come to her suddenly on the drive home that they’d forgotten about the part moths played in the case. They shouldn’t forget the natural-history connection. It had been more than a shared interest for Randle and Benton: more like a passion or an obsession for both of them. The set traps in the Gilswick Hall garden suggested that moths had drawn the first two victims together.
Now, back at her desk in the station, she was continuing the search. This was the sort of work Holly did well, and she found herself relaxing as she checked photo credits and the names at the head of abstracts for scientific journals. It was still early and the office was calm. The reward came with a question on an enthusiasts’ website. The heading was Query from a beginner and there was a request for assistance with a detail of identification. The query had come from J. Hewarth. Holly found herself grinning. She walked through the busy open-plan office to Vera’s room, but the door was shut and nobody was there. Holly knew it was pathetic, but she felt ridiculously disappointed that she couldn’t share the information now, wouldn’t have the immediate payback of a hoot of pleasure from the fat woman and a shouted ‘Great work, Hol’ in front of the whole team.
Back at her desk, she looked at the website in more detail. It hadn’t been recently updated and the query was several years old. Holly had assumed the moth-hunter had been Jonathan, but thought now perhaps Jack had taken up the hobby. She looked at the clock on the office wall. Eight o’clock. By the time she arrived at their house it wouldn’t be an unreasonable time to call on Shirley’s next of kin.
She drove through Kimmerston to a background sound of church bells. The streets were empty but for a small group of elderly women in flowery dresses on their way to Morning Prayer. The Hewarths’ house seemed quiet
and the upstairs curtains were drawn, but when Holly knocked, the door was opened by a woman in her forties. Blonde from a bottle, but with the colour professionally applied. Curvy, well dressed, in a rather showy way. Make-up, a chunky necklace and a gold bangle. Bare legs covered with a smooth fake tan and sandals with small heels. Over her shoulders a cardigan and in her hand a leather bag. Jack Hewarth’s new wife was on her way to work.
Holly introduced herself. ‘Is your husband in? And Jonathan?’
‘They’re in. Not sure if they’re awake. They were up late last night talking about Shirley. You know . . . I thought they probably needed time to remember her, so I left them to it. Just give them a shout. You won’t need me, will you? Only I’ve got a shop in Front Street and I’m the only key-holder. We open at ten on Sunday, but I need to be there to get set up.’
She was friendly and warm, and Holly, who had dismissed her as a tarty airhead, felt a moment of shame. The woman’s heels clopped over the pavement as she walked to her car with her keys in her hand. It was a pleasant, tree-lined street of large 1930s semis. Respectable. Polished cars stood in the drives. From the neighbouring property there was already the sound of a vacuum cleaner. A jogger moved easily along the pavement. Holly thought Joe Ashworth would love to live in a street like this. She supposed the house had belonged to Mandy; perhaps she’d been married before too. It wasn’t the home of a single woman.
Inside there was no sign of life. Ahead of her an open door led to a tidy kitchen and a window looking out over a garden. ‘Hello!’ No response. Holly walked through to the kitchen and looked outside. The garden was narrow and long and beautifully tended. Borders had been freshly weeded. Close to the house a patio with tables and chairs. At the far end the square contraption that she recognized as a moth trap. For the first time since she’d got the call about the murders in Gilswick she remembered why she’d joined the police service. She heard footsteps on the ceiling above her and went back to the foot of the stairs. ‘Hello! Is anyone there? Your wife let me in.’
‘Just a sec.’
The splash of water, the scuffle of clothes being put on and Jack appeared at the top of the stairs. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked more grey and scruffy than at their meeting the previous day. Holly assumed that father and son had spent much of the night before drinking farewell to Shirley Hewarth.
‘I need coffee. Sorry, I didn’t hear the door.’
‘How’s Jonathan?’
Hewarth shrugged. ‘He’s a good lad. He’ll survive. But he’s sad. In shock. Only natural.’ He switched on the kettle and spooned ground coffee into a pot. ‘So am I. I was a journalist before I retired. Covered stories like this all the time. But then they were just stories. I never thought I’d live through one. I’m surprised the press aren’t still camped out on the pavement.’ He gave a hard little laugh. ‘They’ve got no staying power these days.’
He waved the coffee pot at Holly. ‘Fancy some?’
She shook her head. The coffee was almost strong enough to stand a spoon in. She could smell it from where she was waiting and thought she could feel the effect of the caffeine from there.
They were still standing in the kitchen and Holly nodded out into the garden. ‘You’re into moths.’
‘The trap? It was a phase Jonathan went through when he was a young teenager. Before he got the acting bug. I got into moth-trapping with him. There’s something primeval about catching things. Even tiny beasts that are a nightmare to identify. When Shirley and I separated, I brought the trap here. I thought it’d be something Jon and I could do together when he came to stay for weekends, but we only set it a few times. He’d already joined the Youth Theatre by then and all my time seemed to be taken up ferrying him to rehearsals. Mandy’s always at me to get rid of it. I should bring it in and stick it on eBay.’
‘It’s a connection between all three victims,’ Holly said. ‘Martin Benton and Patrick Randle were into moths too. Seems like a weird coincidence. You’re sure you never had any contact with them?’
‘Never.’
‘What about Shirley? Could she have met either of the men through their hobby?’
‘Shirley was never interested.’ Jack drank more coffee, peered at her over the rim of the mug. ‘She couldn’t see the point – said they all looked the same anyway. She encouraged Jonathan, but it wasn’t her thing at all.’
There were footsteps on the stairs. Jonathan had pulled on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, but looked even more hungover than his father.
‘The detective was asking about moth-trapping,’ Jack said. ‘I told her you had other interests these days. Like prancing on a stage, girls and booze.’ The gentle tease took him an effort, and Jonathan managed a smile to show he understood that. He sat at the table with his head in his hands. His father reached for another mug, poured coffee and slid it towards him.
Holly was remembering their last conversation in the office in Northumbria University. She turned her attention to Jack. ‘When we last spoke, you said Patrick Randle’s name was familiar. Could you have come across it because he was into moths too? He’s written a couple of articles.’
‘Maybe.’ Jack sounded doubtful. ‘But like I explained, it was only really a second-hand hobby for me. Jon was the one who followed the stuff online and got the magazines. I helped out in the garden to support him.’
‘Jon?’
The younger man lifted his head and she saw he’d hardly been following the conversation.
‘Perhaps you came across Martin Benton and Patrick Randle when you were moth-trapping. You might have seen Martin’s photographs. They’re brilliant. He lived in Kimmerston, just up the hill from here. He’s the computer wizard who worked for your mother.’ Holly was thinking there were just too many connections now for Martin’s employment at Hope to be pure coincidence.
Jon was staring at her now and making an effort to concentrate.
Holly tried to speak slowly and clearly. ‘When I asked you about Martin yesterday you said you’d met him in the office in Bebington, but I wonder if you’d come across him previously. Because of the shared interest.’
‘Yes!’ It was a light-bulb moment and came out as a shout. ‘He taught me. Just for one term; he was filling in for someone on maternity leave. He was a pretty crap teacher actually, and maths was never my favourite subject. But he was brilliant on moths and butterflies. We got talking one break and he said I could go and see his set-up.’
‘Did you go?’
‘A couple of times over the summer. I must have been about fourteen and we still all lived together in Kimmerston then. Mum came with me when I first went. She had a suspicious mind and spent too much of her time working with perverts. She thought I was in danger of being corrupted or groomed.’
‘And were you?’
‘Nah. Martin was a bit weird, but there was nothing dodgy like that. He was completely harmless.’
‘Weird in what way?’ Holly couldn’t work out the significance of this. It meant that Shirley Hewarth had known Benton for much longer than anyone had realized, but why would that be important?
‘Very precise. A bit obsessive. He lived with his mother, who treated him like a kid. We’d be out in his garden checking the trap and Mrs Benton would come out to check he was warm enough, or she’d appear with mugs of coffee and bits of cake. With Martin, everything was recorded and written down and then he’d transfer the data to a file on his computer. He was a great one for lists.’ Jon seemed brighter as he relived the memories of his early teens. Perhaps the toxic coffee was working its magic. ‘At first I thought all that was brilliant, but Martin expected me to keep the same detailed records and in the end I just found it tedious. I didn’t have that sort of brain. I loved the experience: being out late at night to set the trap and early in the morning to see what we’d caught. He’d put them in jars in the fridge overnight to make them still, and once I went up to his house the next morning to watch him photograph them. He was a brilliant p
hotographer. But it was very passive and I soon got bored.’
‘You don’t remember all this, Mr Hewarth?’ Holly turned to the older man.
He shook his head. ‘Like I said, I just helped Jon out when he was trapping in the garden. When I was around. I was still working then of course, covering stories all over the region, away a lot.’
‘And neither of you made the connection between Martin Benton the moth-trapper and the guy who was working with Shirley?’
‘I didn’t,’ Jonathan said. ‘It was a long time ago and it’s an anonymous sort of name, heard in a different situation. When I knew him Martin was a teacher, not an unemployed guy looking for work experience.’
Holly thought that made sense. She remembered Vera’s first description of Benton as the ‘grey man’. It seemed sad that Benton had been so easily forgotten. But perhaps Shirley had remembered, when Martin had turned up at her office looking for work. Perhaps she could still picture a kind teacher who’d spent time with her son and tried to encourage his interest in natural history.
‘He was ill.’ Another memory had returned to Jonathan. ‘It wasn’t just that I got bored with going out with him. I went to his house one day and his mother said he wasn’t there. He was in hospital. I felt kind of relieved. It gave me a way out and meant I had an excuse for dropping the whole thing. I was one for brief enthusiasms in those days. Phases. I’d already moved on to something else and joined the Youth Theatre. But Martin wouldn’t have understood that.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘Did you ever see him again?’
Jonathan shook his head. ‘My mother asked if I wanted to visit him in hospital that summer. But I’d found out that he was in St David’s. You know, the loony bin. Mum said she’d go with me, but I couldn’t face it.’ A pause. ‘That seems so mean now. Callous. I’m glad he wasn’t alone when he died. It was a double-murder, wasn’t it? I read it in the paper. He was visiting a friend.’
Holly didn’t like to say that the bodies hadn’t been found together, that Randle had been killed in the vegetable garden and Benton inside the house, or that they still didn’t have any real idea of the relationship between the two men. She stood up. Jack stood too, but Jonathan was still, frozen in the past, reliving memories of his youth when the worst thing he had to face was the awkwardness of telling a former teacher that he no longer shared his passion for the natural world.