The Moth Catcher

by Ann Cleeves

  From the station Joe phoned the offices of Kimmerston Building Services and asked to speak to Jason Crow. A middle-aged woman answered. ‘I’m afraid Mr Crow is in meetings all day. Can anyone else help?’

  ‘Will he be free tomorrow?’

  A pause, the sound of pages being turned. An old-fashioned diary. ‘I’m not sure of Mr Crow’s movements for the rest of the week.’ So Crow hadn’t joined his family for a perfect holiday in the French countryside. Not yet at least. Joe thanked the woman and hung up.

  He headed out into the town. He wasn’t sure where young people hung out in Kimmerston during the day. He tried the bus station first and tracked down the driver who’d driven from Gilswick that morning. It was the same man who’d carried Martin Benton to his death. Joe described Lizzie. ‘Pale. Red hair. Bonny.’

  ‘Aye, she was waiting at the first stop in Gilswick.’ He was outside in the designated smoking area, sucking on a tiny roll-up as if it would save his life.

  ‘Did she come all the way into town?’

  ‘Not quite. She got off two stops before the bus station. That posh estate on the hill. What’s it called? Something naff. Heather View.’ He threw the remains of his cigarette onto the floor and stamped on it. ‘They changed the whole route to take in the estate, but there aren’t many buggers from there who use public transport.’

  ‘Was anyone waiting for her?’ Because Jason Crow lived in one of the palaces on the edge of Heather View.

  The driver shook his head.

  ‘Did you see which way she walked?’

  ‘Aye.’ A slow, conspiratorial smile. ‘She was worth watching. You know what I mean?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She walked up the hill, away from the town.’

  Joe phoned Vera and had the sense that he’d woken her up. He imagined her still in the Land Rover outside the Hall, rain from the overhanging trees rattling on the vehicle’s roof.

  ‘I think Lizzie’s at Jason Crow’s house. What do you want me to do?’

  There was a silence. She was going through the options.

  ‘Go there. You’ve got a reasonable excuse. Ask him about his dealings with the Valley Farm folk. How he found them to work with. All useful stuff anyway.’

  ‘And if Lizzie’s there?’

  Another long silence.

  ‘See if you can persuade her to come back to the valley with you. Offer her a lift. I’d rather know where she is.’

  Joe remembered Lizzie as he’d met her in the prison. Amused and defiant. He thought it would be very hard to persuade her to do anything she didn’t want to do. He drove to Jason Crow’s house and sat outside for a moment, intimidated despite himself. The big house and the memory of Lizzie Redhead sapped his confidence. He got out and rang the doorbell. Crow appeared, looking older than the photos they had of him in the operations room, but still fit. He was barefoot, in jeans and a sweater. It didn’t look to Joe as if he’d been in meetings all day.

  ‘Is Lizzie Redhead here?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’ Crow was old enough to be Lizzie’s father, but there was the same arrogance, the same air of superiority.

  Joe showed his warrant card.

  ‘Of course. I should have guessed. That jacket comes straight from central casting.’

  ‘Lizzie Redhead?’ Joe was wondering how he could get inside to have a look.

  ‘You just missed her,’ Crow said. ‘She left half an hour ago.’

  ‘What was she doing here?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘I suppose,’ Crow said, ‘she came to make her peace.’

  Joe didn’t ask what the man meant. He knew he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

  Crow seemed to be losing patience. ‘She’s not here. I told you. Come in and check if you like. I don’t want my neighbours getting the wrong idea, seeing the filth on the doorstep.’

  There was an expensive suitcase in the hall at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘I’m going to France to catch up with my family tomorrow. An early start, so I’m prepared.’ Then: ‘Help yourself, Sergeant. Go wherever you like. I’ll be in my office, if you need me.’ Crow seemed suddenly amused by Joe’s discomfort. The irritation had dissipated.

  Joe started at the top of the house. He had no expectation of finding Lizzie now, but he wasn’t going to walk away without looking. He was curious too. He imagined going home and telling Sal about the grand bathroom in the master bedroom, the kids’ rooms, each with their own shower, the fitted furniture and the flat-screen TVs. He opened wardrobes and saw suits that must have cost more than he earned in a month. On the ground floor he looked in the utility room and found a door into the garage. Nothing. Crow’s office door was open. He was sitting at his desk, looking at a computer screen, the bare feet on a chair. Apparently relaxed.

  ‘Did Lizzie tell you where she was going?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Back home to the valley, I think. She said she had some shopping to do, then she’d catch the bus.’ Crow kept his eyes fixed on the computer screen.

  ‘You didn’t offer her a lift?’

  ‘I’m a busy man and she’s a grown woman. She could make her own way home.’

  Joe wasn’t sure what else to ask. He felt stupid standing in the office doorway, an uninvited guest in the rich man’s house.

  ‘You can see yourself out, Sergeant.’ Crow didn’t turn round when Joe made his way to the front door.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Holly had never been a rule-breaker. At school she’d been close to the top of the class, but she hadn’t had the spark of genius or the willingness to take risks intellectually that might have set her apart. She’d won her place at university through dogged hard work and had joined the police force because she’d understood that those traits would be rewarded.

  Vera had sent her back to Kimmerston to write up the notes from the day’s interviews for the evening briefing, so Holly sat at her desk preparing to do just that. Then, her fingers resting on the keyboard and without any conscious effort, suddenly she was inside Lizzie’s head, seeing the world through her eyes. She knew precisely what the young woman was planning. This flash of intuition was dizzying and was so unexpected that Holly sat for a moment without moving. She picked up her jacket and shouted to the team remaining in the open-plan office that she was going back to Gilswick. A middle-aged DC looked up and waved to her, but nobody else took any notice.

  Holly arrived in the village at the same time as the bus from Kimmerston. She pulled in close to the pavement outside the post office and waited to see the passengers get off. Three people: two elderly women with baskets of shopping and Lizzie Redhead. Lizzie was last off and hesitated before setting off on foot up the lane towards the valley. Holly waited until she was out of sight, switched her phone to silent and followed. The rain was lighter, hardly more than a damp mist, but the visibility was poor. Lizzie was a shadow glimpsed occasionally in the distance; the copper hair that was so distinctive in the photo pinned to the incident-room whiteboard was drained of colour. Everything in the landscape looked grey.

  Close to the gates to the big house Lizzie seemed to disappear. Holly stood and listened. Nothing. Holly was accustomed to the silence of the city where there was always distant traffic noise, the occasional blast of a siren. This was real silence, dense and a little frightening. Behind her she sensed movement. Perhaps it was the rustle of waterproof clothing or a careful footstep on wet grass. Holly looked behind her, but only saw the lane leading back towards the village. To her left stood the big house, invisible from here, hidden by the high stone wall and the trees where Randle had set his moth traps. To her right was a patch of scrubby bushes leading down to the river. Both provided hiding places. Holly remained still and strained to listen. It didn’t seem possible that Lizzie could have shifted position without Holly seeing. But if it wasn’t Lizzie moving behind her, then who was it?

  There was silence again. Nobody was following her. The sound had been caused by an animal in the un
dergrowth. Vera would laugh if she could see Holly’s unease: Not really cut out for work in the big outdoors, are you, pet? Holly turned through the pillars that marked the entrance to the big house. Lizzie must have come this way. There was no other explanation.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Lizzie walked slowly up the valley. Her hands were in her pockets and she had her hood up against the drizzle. She could have phoned her parents for a lift when she got off the bus, but she had other plans. She wouldn’t be going straight home. Not now. In her right pocket was the Stanley knife she’d bought earlier in the day in the cheap hardware shop in Kimmerston. She’d unscrewed it so that the blade was exposed and she rubbed her thumb against the metal.

  Jason Crow had been disappointing. He seemed to have got old while she’d been in prison. He’d lost his edge. Become soft and sentimental, talking about his family as if he cared about them. Gutless. Saying he loved Lizzie, but he couldn’t run away with her, not while the kids were at university. Not until he’d sorted out the business and released his assets. Too many excuses, so she didn’t believe any of them. Then: ‘You’re playing with fire, Lizzie Redhead. Just let it go. Do you want to go back inside? You won’t get such an easy ride next time.’

  If she’d had the knife then, she might have been tempted to use it on him. She shut her eyes briefly and imagined how that would feel. The rip of the blade through the skin, like scissors through fabric. That would bring Jason Crow alive again. He wouldn’t ignore her then.

  Lizzie opened her eyes. She’d reached the turning to Gilswick Hall and paused for a moment, remembering childhood teas with the Carswell kids. Chaotic affairs in the kitchen: sliced white bread with honey or Marmite, mucky jars on the table, cakes from a packet. Stuff she was never allowed at home. The major had fought in the Falklands and had told stories that entranced her. If she’d been brought up in that house, where adventure was encouraged, she might be a different person. She turned into the drive and her feet crunched on the gravel. She walked slowly now and moved away from the drive, keeping to the trees. The detective’s Land Rover had been parked in here when she’d walked out to the bus in the morning, and the last thing she needed was to meet a bunch of cops. The rain wasn’t heavy, but water dripped from the branches. No Land Rover. No sign of life in the big house.

  Shirley Hewarth had told Lizzie about the moth traps during that last conversation in Sittingwell. They’d talked about Patrick Randle and Martin Benton at an earlier meeting. Two dead men who’d shared a passion. And a secret. Lizzie knew what she was looking for and walked through the trees until she found the traps. Her shoes were wet from the long grass, her socks sopping. She looked at her watch. Not long to wait.

  She flicked a switch and the lights came on. Long neon strips, so bright they hurt her eyes if she looked directly at them. So white that they appeared tinged with icy blue. They’d attract more than bugs that night. She squatted beside them, pulling her waterproof under her bum so that she didn’t get too wet. Then she began to rehearse the words that she’d use to the person she’d arranged to meet here. The words that she’d been planning since she’d come across the book published by the National Geographic in the prison, rehearsing them while she was lying awake in her room, listening to the other women’s breathing. She’d repeated the phrases over and over again while she dreamed of deserts, forests and wide, open skies.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Vera sat in the Redheads’ living room and watched the light drain from the valley. Annie and Sam were with her, so tense that the air seemed to crackle with their anxiety like static electricity. Annie couldn’t keep still. Every few moments she got to her feet and ran up the stairs. Vera knew what she was doing: staring out of the landing window in the hope that she’d catch a glimpse of her daughter making her way up the lane. But now it was almost dark and there was nothing to see.

  Vera had got Joe to check with the bus station again, to see if Lizzie had been on the last bus back to Gilswick. He hadn’t got back to her. Sam had already driven down the road to look for his daughter. Now he wanted a search party in the valley. Blue lights and sirens. ‘There’s a killer on the loose and my girl’s missing. And you’re sitting here and drinking tea.’

  ‘She could be in a bar in Kimmerston,’ Vera said. ‘You told me yourself that was the most likely thing she’d be up to. No need to panic yet.’ But she was panicking. Back in the station Holly was supposed to be tying up loose ends, but nobody seemed to know where she was. Joe was in Kimmerston, in case Lizzie had switched off her phone to stop her parents nagging and was celebrating six months’ sobriety by going on a bender with her mates. And Vera was here, having to make a decision about what to do next. Feeling indecisive, which was unlike her. So close to making an arrest, but not quite ready. And Lizzie Redhead primed like an unexploded bomb, out and about in the wilds of Northumberland.

  Vera’s phone rang. She left the room and took the call in the kitchen. Joe.

  ‘We’ve tracked her movements through CCTV. When she left Crow’s house she headed to the town centre. She went to a couple of shops – one hardware store and one travel agent – then to the bus station. She got on the three-thirty bus to Gilswick. I’ve sent someone to check the shops to see what she was up to.’

  ‘So she should have been home an hour ago, even if she was walking slowly.’ Vera’s mind fizzed and sparked, and she thought again there was a charge in the air that was blocking rational thought.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  She paused. If they brought in a large search team, the killer would go to ground. There’d be no evidence and no resolution. No real explanation. The most frustrating end to an investigation. ‘Come to the village and park there. Walk up the valley. Slowly. There might just be enough light, if you’re quick. Sam has already driven down, but he’ll only have been looking at the road. Try the footpaths that lead to the burn and the ones that go onto the hill. I’ll start from this end.’

  ‘Okay.’ She could tell that he was already moving.

  ‘Come quickly,’ she said. Now she’d decided on a course of action, she wanted to bring the thing to a close. The panic that overwhelmed the house was still making her jumpy. She had never been so uncertain. When she finished the call she stood for a moment, before heading back to talk to Sam and Annie. They’d be waiting for her, expecting some explanation. She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave them in the house on their own.

  ‘Good news,’ she said briskly. ‘Lizzie got on the bus in town and headed out to Gilswick. It’s possible that she met up with a friend from the valley, don’t you think? That she’s in The Lamb, catching up. Or in one of the houses in the village. Waiting for the rain to clear. She probably has no idea that you’re worried.’

  They stared at her. Annie just looked distraught. Vera couldn’t tell what was going through Sam’s mind. ‘Maybe you’d like to check?’ Vera said. ‘Drive down to the pub and see if she’s there.’

  ‘We could phone Gloria.’ It seemed Sam had decided that Vera had nothing useful to contribute. ‘That makes more sense.’

  Annie tugged at his sleeve. ‘No. Let’s drive down to the village. I can’t stand waiting. This house . . . And there might be other people there who were on the bus. We might even bump into Lizzie on the road.’

  Vera stayed where she was until she heard their car drive away, then she went outside. In the other houses facing onto the courtyard the curtains had been shut against the weather. Everything was quiet. The rain was gentle and persistent. She pulled up the hood of her jacket and started down the track, allowing her eyes to get used to the gloom. She had a torch in her pocket, but didn’t need it yet.

  She turned onto the footpath leading to the hill where Shirley Hewarth’s body had been found and stood for a moment, listening. Again she was struck by the fact that it was impossible to see the Valley Farm development from here. It was only a few minutes’ walk away, but she could be miles from human habitation. There was no sound.
No movement. She started on down the lane towards Percy and Susan’s house, walking on the grass verge so that her footsteps made no noise. When she got to the trees there was less light and it was only the gleam from an elaborate lamp on the outside wall of the bungalow that kept her on the road. The couple hadn’t drawn their curtains and she stood very still, looking in. Percy was standing in the kitchen with a mug in his hand. Vera couldn’t see Susan. The rain had stopped and the sky seemed to be clearing a little.

  She walked on more quickly, seeing her way more easily. The next turn-off was the drive to the Hall. Because of the twist in the track and the trees, it was impossible to see the house. But in the distance there were lights. Blue-white and ghostly and close to the ground. Patrick Randle’s moth traps. It was the last thing she’d been expecting to see, as if the young man had come back to haunt them.

  Vera stopped again and listened. Voices. Indistinct and too far away for her to make out the speakers. At this distance they were more like whispers. Lovers’ caresses. At first she wondered if the sound was just caused by the wind in the branches.

  She didn’t move. She wished she knew where Joe was. She didn’t want him stumbling along the road, all heavy boots and shouting. This was a delicate situation. She thought again that Lizzie was like an unexploded bomb. A sudden movement or a loud noise might set her off. Vera took her phone from her pocket and switched it to silent. Then she tapped out a text to Joe: Lizzie in Gilswick Hall close to the moth traps. Approach carefully. No fuss. No noise. She hit ‘Send’ and the message disappeared silently into the ether. Vera listened again, but the conversation under the trees seemed to have stopped.