The Moth Catcher (26 page)

‘We spoke to Patrick’s girlfriend.’ Vera realized suddenly that she’d forgotten to ask about this, and that it was important. ‘She told us that he’d been engrossed by a project, but that it was almost over. Do you know anything about that?’

‘No, I didn’t even know that Patrick and Rebecca were still in touch. I told you, he hasn’t been very communicative with me recently. I asked him what I’d done to upset him, but he didn’t give any sort of coherent answer.’ Alicia stood just inside the door as if she was reluctant to engage with the memories of the room. ‘I suppose we’ll have to clear all this out.’ And then, with a little cry, ‘I can’t bear it.’

‘No rush,’ Henry said. ‘All in your own time. If you can’t face it now, we can leave the inspector to it. I’m sure we’re both ready for a stiff drink.’

Vera supposed that he’d dealt with crises before, imagined his reassuring plummy voice notifying relatives of sudden deaths, arrests, accidents overseas.

But Alicia didn’t answer. After a brief hesitation she walked further into the room and began to pick up items that had been thrown onto the floor. She hung a dressing gown on a hook on the back of the door, gathered up a pile of newspapers and dropped them into a large black plastic box already half-filled with rubbish. ‘It’s all such a mess. Patrick was always very keen on recycling, even as a young boy. It was a kind of obsession. He wasn’t always as good at bringing the paper downstairs to go into the special skip in the lane.’

‘If you want to leave me to it,’ Vera said, ‘I won’t be very long now. A quick peek and then I’ll join you downstairs. I’ll need to be going back again soon anyway.’

If Alicia was surprised by the detective’s change of tone, she didn’t show it. Henry put his arm around her and led her away. As soon as they’d gone Vera sat on the bed, put on a pair of latex gloves and pulled the recycling box towards her. Carefully she took out each piece of paper and laid it on the floor. Newspapers, junk mail, adverts for credit cards and holidays in the sun. Empty envelopes. Vera studied the postmark on each one. Nothing from north-east England.

Then she came across the letter. Printed on headed paper: Hope North-East and then the address in Bebington:

Vera leaned back on the bed and looked at the patterns caused by the shadows of the trees outside dancing on the ceiling. Another connection between Hewarth, Benton and Randle. But she still couldn’t see what information a posh lad from the South could want from a social worker living in a deprived part of the North-East. And why that information had led to the deaths of three people. She slipped the letter into an evidence bag and then into the briefcase her team had given her for her last significant birthday, in an attempt to improve her image and, by association, theirs.

Henry and Alicia were waiting for her in the room that looked out onto the garden. The French window was still open and there was a breeze. They came out to meet Vera in the hall – eager, Vera thought, to get rid of her, worried that if she moved further into the house they’d never get her to leave. Henry opened the front door, and the French window in the room looking out over the back garden slammed shut with a bang.

‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She hesitated for a moment on the doorstep. She wanted to be away too, but had the sense that the right question now would solve the entire case.

‘Goodbye, Inspector.’ Alicia seemed to have recovered her poise. She held out her hand.

Vera couldn’t think of the right question to ask and walked away to the car, suddenly desperate to be away from the quiet and elegant house.

Charlie was still asleep. She rapped on the window and he woke suddenly, obviously unaware for a moment exactly what was happening. She got into the passenger seat. ‘You’ve been asleep all afternoon, so you can drive back too.’

She didn’t close her eyes, though. There was too much to think about. Charlie saw that she was awake and started chatting. ‘Pretty round here, isn’t it? Would you ever consider a move south?’

‘Nah!’ She looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Not here. It’s too far from the sea.’ She paused for a moment and tried to work out why she was so horrified at the prospect of living in the middle of the country. ‘I never feel safe away from the edge.’

Holly had been detailed to talk to Shirley Hewarth’s close relatives. The ex-husband and son had already been informed of her death, but Vera had wanted them spoken to in more detail. ‘I need you to bring back a clearer picture of Shirley. I can’t get any sense of her. What was she? Some sort of saint, spending her time with wasters and sinners? Or was she one of those women who feels the need to mother the world?’

So Holly found herself standing in a corridor in Northumbria University, outside one of the rehearsal rooms. Inside, a show seemed to be in the first stages of planning. Half a dozen young people were blocking moves to weird music Holly didn’t recognize. Jonathan was expecting her, and when he saw her looking through the glass door he took his leave of the group. They gathered round and hugged him in turn. He was a tall, gangling young man, dark like his mother. She could see the resemblance.

When he emerged into the corridor she held out a hand. ‘I’m so sorry about your mother.’ She never knew exactly what to say in these circumstances. Vera had banned
Sorry for your loss
. ‘We’re not characters from an American cop show,’ she’d yelled at one of the briefings, ‘and the bereaved haven’t just mislaid their car keys.’

Jonathan led her to a tiny room where three desks were crammed into a space hardly bigger than a cupboard. ‘My tutor said we could use her office. She doesn’t need it because it’s the weekend. She came in specially because of what happened to Mam.’ His voice was even, and Holly thought he was still in shock. He hadn’t yet accepted the reality of his mother’s death. He leaned against one of the desks and nodded that she should take the chair.

‘But you’re here, even though it’s a Saturday?’

‘We’re working towards our final performance and there’s a lot on.’ He paused. ‘Claire, my tutor, tried to send me home, but what good would it do me to be moping in my room? Dad’s going to pick me up in a bit. I’m going to stay with him and Mandy in Kimmerston for a few days.’ He looked into her face. A fierce stare. A challenge. ‘Do you know who killed my mother yet?’

Holly shook her head.

‘I’d assumed it must be one of her clients.’ He had the sort of face that gave everything away. Emotion was reflected in it like the shadows of moving clouds on a still lake. In a few seconds Holly saw disgust, anger and affection. ‘She loved working in that place, but when I saw some of the men she was dealing with . . . They’d have scared
me
.’

‘You went to the office in Bebington?’

‘A few times. Mum and I went to the theatre a lot, and once I’d learned to drive I’d pick her up to bring her into town.’

‘Can you think why she might have been in Gilswick yesterday?’

He gave a little laugh. ‘That area seems a bit upmarket for most of her clients, but I suppose it might have been work. She did lots of home visits.’

‘Your mother didn’t have friends who lived in the valley? She told the volunteer who worked with her in the office that she was taking time off yesterday afternoon, so the visit was nothing to do with the charity.’

He paused. ‘We were close,’ he said. ‘I lived in her flat before I got the place at Northumbria Uni and decided I needed a bit of independence, and I can’t remember her talking about anyone from Gilswick. But we didn’t live in each other’s pockets, even when I was still at school.’

‘Had there been anyone special after the divorce?’ Holly was feeling her way here. She still had no idea what she was looking for.

‘Probably.’ He grinned. ‘But she wasn’t going to tell me. We were close, but some areas were off-limits. I never chatted about my love life, either. But I don’t think she had a long-term relationship. She liked her independence too much.’

‘Was that what caused the break-up of the marriage? Your parents had been together for a long time.’

‘Perhaps. Though I didn’t ever see Dad cramping her style. She was always her own woman, even when they were married.’ He paused again. ‘Sometimes I think my mother had a kind of self-destruct button. She couldn’t quite accept that things were going well, and made life so difficult for my Dad that he left in the end. Found another woman. Someone less complicated.’ There was another silence. ‘It was almost as if she didn’t believe she had the right to be happy. I don’t blame my dad for leaving. They were both more relaxed after the separation.’

It was lunchtime, and through the window Holly could see students in groups on a piece of grass, chatting. It could have been midsummer.

‘The local news is linking my mother’s death with the double-murder that happened in Gilswick last week.’ Jonathan shot another intense stare in her direction. ‘Is that true?’

‘One of the earlier victims worked with Shirley as a volunteer,’ Holly said. ‘It seems too much of a coincidence not to be some sort of connection. Did you ever meet Martin Benton?’

‘I don’t think I ever met him when I called into the office to see my mother. She did talk about him, though. She said he was brilliant at all things technical.’

There was a silence. Vera would have known how to fill it, would have elicited confidences and useful pieces of information. Yet again Holly felt inadequate in comparison.
I’m not even good at this, so why do I put myself through it every day?

‘Patrick Randle, one of the earlier victims, wrote to your mother from his home in Wychbold. That’s a town in Herefordshire. Do you know what that might have been about?’

The student seemed bewildered. ‘I have absolutely no idea. Mum worked all over the place when she first qualified, but I don’t think she ever lived that far south. Besides, that was years ago, long before I was born, and I don’t think she kept in touch with anyone she worked with there. Except maybe on Facebook.’

Holly made a mental note to get the techies to check Shirley’s Facebook page. Perhaps that had been how Patrick found her. Or how she’d found him. ‘When did you last see your mother?’

‘Just under a week ago. It was Sunday lunchtime. She cooked for me in her flat. Roast lamb. My favourite. Veggie pie for her. Then we walked along the front to Tynemouth and had a couple of drinks in a bar there, before I got the Metro back to town.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘I’m not sure.’ He seemed lost in his thoughts. ‘My memory is coloured by what’s happened since. Looking back, she seemed a bit distracted, not quite herself – a bit quiet maybe. I asked her if everything was okay and she said she thought she was going down with a cold. I accepted that. She wasn’t a woman you felt you had to take care of.’

‘Have you been in touch with her since?’

‘Only by text. Some mail had come to the flat for me. Should she post it on or keep hold of it? Did I fancy the new play at the Live Theatre? She was an absolutely perfect mother. Supportive when I needed her, but never interfering, never in-my-face.’

There was a tap at the office door. A woman stood outside accompanied by an older man in jeans and a jersey. ‘Your dad’s here.’

The woman was obviously Jonathan’s tutor. The man put his arms round his son and they clung to each other. Jonathan, who’d been holding things together well until now, seemed to collapse into his father’s arms. Holly felt awkward faced by the show of affection. The tutor walked away without another word. Jack Hewarth was crying silently and without fuss, allowing the tears to run down his face.

‘This is a detective, Dad. She’s investigating Mum’s murder.’ Jonathan had pulled away.

‘Would you mind if I asked you some questions too, Mr Hewarth? Background stuff.’ Holly wished they would both sit down. She felt at a disadvantage in the low chair.

‘Aye, why not? If it’ll help. It’ll be the same madman that killed those two people in Gilswick, though, won’t it? That’s where her body was found.’

‘We’re not ruling anything out at the moment.’

The man took a seat opposite to her. He was unshaven, untidy, and Holly thought that was his natural state and not a reaction to grief.

‘We were still friends,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hate her. Nothing like that. And she came along to the wedding when I got married again and gave us her blessing.’

‘Where did you meet?’

‘Staffordshire. Two Geordies out of their comfort zone. She was with a bunch of friends in a bar and I recognized the accent, went over for a chat.’ He leaned back in the chair. ‘It was my first job. Cub reporter on a small-town local rag, but I loved every minute. She’d just qualified as a probation officer and seemed a bit overwhelmed. I couldn’t see it was right, a young thing like her dealing with murderers and rapists. They’d send her out to interview men on council estates where the police would only go in pairs. After a day like that she just wanted fun, and nobody can let their hair down like people from the North-East.’

‘When did you come back north?’ Holly supposed she’d been a young thing when she started working with murderers and rapists. She’d never been one for letting her hair down much, though.

‘Soon after we married. I got a job on
The Journal
and stayed there till I took early retirement. She found a post easily enough and worked her way up to team leader. She ended up in the prison. Sittingwell. She’d worked in institutions before and I think she liked it there. It’s an open nick, and she thought she could do positive work with the girls. Then there were all sorts of changes to the probation service, plans to privatize, and she got disheartened. She couldn’t see a future for herself under the new regime. Retirement wasn’t for her, though – I’m an idle bastard, but she always had enough energy to power the National Grid.’