Chapter Eight

Back at his desk, Joe called the BBC in Newcastle and was put through to the reporter, who sounded older and more experienced than he’d looked on the screen.

‘So you’re saying that one of the guys I interviewed was the victim in the Gilswick double-murder?’ In his head the man would be imagining a spot on the national television news. Fame at last.

‘That’s not information that we’d like to make public at this point. Not until we can be sure of his identification, and his family have been informed.’

‘Of course.’ So the man was responsible at least. He knew he’d still be able to use the clip, once they gave permission, and he’d get credited then.

Joe took a deep breath. ‘Did you take his name?’

‘I didn’t get a chance. I don’t like to hassle people and I wouldn’t have spoken to him, but he walked straight towards me on the pavement. I thought he must be interested in getting his face on the TV, and most of the punters I’d spoken to were younger, so he’d be a good contrast. Maybe bring a different perspective. That was why I pushed it, when he refused to engage.’

‘Why did he approach you then, if he didn’t want to be interviewed?’ Anyone in the street with a clipboard and Joe immediately crossed to the other side.

‘I don’t think he noticed me. He seemed completely preoccupied, wrapped up in thoughts of his own. I think he was startled when I spoke to him.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ Joe was starting to think that he wasn’t being so lucky after all.

‘He walked away up Front Street and I’m fairly sure that he went into an office on the corner.’

Joe shut his eyes and pictured the scene. Front Street had a row of traditional shops and then there was a newer place. Ugly. Glass and concrete, with the concrete disfigured with damp. Pale-green paint. It had a shop with cards in the window, and inside a row of computers that looked more like gaming machines. And perhaps getting work in Kimmerston was a bit of a lottery. ‘The Job Centre?’

‘Of course! That’s it. Yes, he went into the Job Centre.’

Joe thought his luck must have held out after all. If the man was a claimant, they’d have all his details on file. And if he’d made an appointment or spoken to an officer, it would be easy enough to get a name. Though it was more likely, Joe thought, remembering the grey suit and the old-fashioned specs, that their victim worked there. He looked like the stereotypical civil servant.

‘What time were you recording in Kimmerston?’

‘I started just after midday. We waited for the clock on the market square to finish chiming before we began. Finished about thirty minutes later. We didn’t need much to go with the news report.’

So their grey man could have been out of the office for his lunch-break. Joe pulled his jacket from the back of the chair and went out. The Job Centre was only five minutes away and Vera always said that face-to-face interviews were more valuable than the phone. He took with him the head-shot of the victim.

It was another sunny day. In the street a couple of young mothers sat at tables outside the coffee shop in the square, chatting as toddlers in buggies snoozed. Elderly women were taking their time shopping, stopping to greet friends and catch up on gossip.

In the Job Centre Joe waited in the short queue at reception. A woman scarcely looked away from her screen. ‘Yes?’

He held out his warrant card. ‘I’d like to speak to a manager.’

‘Oh.’ She scurried off. Joe looked around and thought the place was depressing. Lots of grey people. An overweight man studied one of the computer screens and walked out, apparently disappointed, letting the door slam behind him.

A woman with a baby in a buggy was having an argument with a member of staff. ‘So what am I supposed to do about childcare?’

‘I’m sorry.’ The officer was young and seemed close to tears. ‘I don’t make the rules.’

Not much of the joys of spring here.

A middle-aged woman appeared through the door that said Staff Only. ‘Come through.’ Brusque, no wasted words. Well-cut hair, a black pencil skirt and black jacket. A woman with ambition. She led him through a large open-plan office and into an interview room. ‘How can I help?’ The tone of her voice made it clear that her time was precious.

‘I wonder if you can tell me who this man is?’ He laid the photograph of the grey man on the desk in front of her.

He was so certain that the grey man had been a colleague that he expected an immediate response. But her only response was a question. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘We suspect that he might have been the victim of an incident last night, and we need to inform his family.’ Incident, he thought. A useful catch-all word.

‘I don’t recognize him.’ The woman was staring at the photo. ‘But I don’t spend much time on the floor. You’d need to ask the customer-service staff.’

‘He doesn’t work here?’

‘Oh no!’ As if it were impossible that someone working in the Job Centre could be involved in any sort of incident at all.

Downstairs the war of attrition between the young officer and the single mother was continuing, though it seemed to be reaching a climax. ‘I can’t be doing with all this now, you stupid cow – I need to get the bairn to the health visitor, or they’ll have the social onto me for neglect.’ The mother was screaming at the top of her voice, her face red with anger and embarrassment. Suddenly she stood up and walked out.

In the room there was no reaction at all, except for a small sigh of relief from the young officer. Joe approached her. ‘Is it always like that?’

‘Nah,’ the woman grinned. ‘This is one of the quiet days. And to think I joined up because I thought I could make a difference.’

He introduced himself and then held out the photograph. ‘Do you recognize this man? He was in yesterday lunchtime.’

‘That’s Martin Benton.’ She didn’t have any curiosity at all about why Joe would want to know. ‘He’s just been assessed as fit to work, after a long time on invalidity benefit. We’ve been helping him back to the job market.’

‘He had an appointment with you yesterday?’

‘Yes, the initial interview, so I could explain the process and the responsibilities of the jobseeker. But when he came in he’d already decided to take the self-employment route.’

‘Did he say what work he intended to do?’

‘I don’t think so, and really it wasn’t relevant for our purposes. He’d decided not to claim benefit. That was all we needed to know.’

‘But you’ll still hold all his details. His address and previous work record.’

‘I’m not sure I can give you that information. Data protection.’ The room was quiet now and the sun was streaming through the windows, making it feel very hot.

‘Well, I can get a warrant of course, but your supervisor said you’d be able to help.’ Joe nodded towards the door that said Staff Only. He thought the people upstairs in the open-plan office had it easy.

The young woman shrugged, tapped a few keys and hit the print button. ‘I’m leaving anyway,’ she said. ‘So sod it – it’s their responsibility. I’m going back to uni to do a social-work course.’

‘This’ll be good practice.’

‘Aye,’ she said. ‘That’s what I thought.’

She held out two printed sheets.


In the cafe on the square Joe drank milky coffee and read the life history of Martin Benton. The facts, at least. It seemed to Joe that there was little here to bring the man back to life. He’d been forty-eight when he died and he lived in a suburb of Kimmerston. He’d gained eight GCSEs at reasonable grades and three A levels, then got a degree in maths from Northumbria University. He’d done a postgraduate teaching year and had worked in a number of local high schools for fifteen years. There was no explanation for his decision to leave teaching. His most recent employment had been three years before, when he’d worked as an admin officer for a small charity. After that he’d been registered for invalidity benefit until, under the new regime, he’d been assessed as fit for work.

There were some gaps in Benton’s employment record: a couple between teaching posts, and a longer spell before he began work for the charity. If he’d been a different kind of man, Joe would have suspected criminal activity. Spent spells in prison wouldn’t necessarily have to be declared. His record could be checked, but it seemed unlikely. Qualified maths teachers didn’t usually become petty criminals.

There were no details of Benton’s family history. Joe found himself hoping that in the house in Laurel Avenue there would be a wife waiting for him – that the grey man hadn’t been a loner. He pictured someone soft and comfortable, with an easy smile, and began to imagine reasons why she might not have reported her husband missing the night before. Then he told himself that such speculation was ridiculous and he should check out the address to see.

Laurel Avenue was a quiet terrace on a hill on the edge of the town. Neat little Edwardian houses with identical porches, and a footpath that separated the homes from tiny gardens. At the back, yards and a narrow street for cars and bins. Joe preferred new houses that took no maintenance, but he could see the attraction of living here. The kids could play out, because there was no traffic at the front, and there was a view of the hills. It felt as if you could be in a village. Some of the gardens were planted with raised beds of salad leaves, wigwams for runner beans, but number twelve held the traditional square of grass with flowerbeds round the edges. The lawn could have done with a cut, but the place wasn’t overgrown or neglected. At the bottom of the garden stood a square plywood box that, from a distance, Joe took to be a hutch for a small pet. Curiosity took him over the grass to look, but there was no animal inside; instead an aluminium funnel and a large bulb. Joe was none the wiser.

There were three steps up to the front door. He rang the bell and waited. Pressed it again and listened to make sure that it was working. No response. Perhaps the comfortable wife of his imagination was out at work.

He was thinking he’d go round to the back and see if he could find a way in, without breaking a window, when a neighbour appeared. Elderly, plump. White hair in tight curls. She looked like Benton’s imaginary wife, but thirty years older.

‘Martin’s not in.’

Joe stepped over the low wall that separated her front step from number twelve. ‘Has he got any family?’

‘Who wants to know?’ She gave him a lovely smile, but her words were sharp.

‘Police.’

‘Come in then, and we can talk. They’re a nebby lot round here.’ Another smile. ‘As you can see. I’m Kitty Richardson.’

Inside the place was polished. Every surface in the small living room gleamed in the sun that came through the bay window and smelled of lavender. In a corner a yellow budgie sat on a perch in a cage on a stand. Joe thought little had been changed since the house was built.

‘You’ve been here a while?’

‘Since we were first married.’ She settled on a high-backed chair facing the television and nodded for him to take the sofa. ‘My Arthur passed away on my seventieth birthday, but I stayed on. No point moving when my friends are all here.’ She nodded towards the partition wall that separated her house from Benton’s. ‘Elsie was like a sister to me.’ A pause, then a confession. ‘When she went, I missed her more than I did Arthur.’

‘And Elsie was?’ The reflected light was making him blink.

‘Martin’s mam, of course.’

‘Did he always live with his mother?’

‘On and off.’ She looked up at him. ‘He was never a strong man. Always had trouble with his nerves.’ There was a moment’s silence. The budgie squawked. ‘What’s he done?’

‘Nothing.’ Joe hesitated and then thought that the news would get out soon enough. ‘Martin’s dead. He died in suspicious circumstances. I need to notify his next of kin. And get into the house, if I can.’

‘Did he kill himself?’

Joe thought of the body that had been lying on the polished wooden floor in the attic of the big house. The slashes of the knife ripping at the shirt, and through the skin and bone. That certainly hadn’t been the result of suicide. ‘No!’

‘It wouldn’t have been surprising,’ Kitty said. ‘Elsie didn’t go into details, but I think he tried. Once or twice.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know about next of kin. His father died just before Elsie. There weren’t any other children.’ She looked up. ‘Sad, isn’t it? I can’t think of any relative who might be interested.’

‘Can you tell me about him?’ A Vera question, open-ended.

‘He was one of those quiet, sickly bairns. I was a nursery nurse before I married and I knew the sort. Given to asthma and feeling sorry for himself. It didn’t help that he was an only child and his mother loved the bones of him.’ She hesitated and Joe knew better than to jump in with another question. ‘He’s always been a loner. Never had a woman, as far as I know.’ A pause, a sly look and a grin to show how enlightened she was. ‘Or a man. He was canny enough, though. Kind. He took other people’s problems to heart. He was at the front door every five minutes collecting for some charity or other.’

‘Where did he live when he wasn’t at home?’

‘I believe he got himself a flat in Newcastle when he did his teacher training. I thought it would be the making of him. He’d have pals from the college and he might meet a nice lass. But it didn’t last and he was soon home.’

‘He was a teacher?’

‘Elsie’s idea. Her man had been down the pit and she didn’t want manual work for her boy. I never thought he’d have the constitution for teaching, though, not with the way bairns are these days.’

‘And he went along with the idea?’ Joe couldn’t imagine his children doing anything he suggested without a battle.

Kitty shot him a glance. ‘That was part of his problem. He’d never been brought up to think for himself.’

‘But he stuck at teaching for quite a long time.’

‘Aye, but the stress of it was killing him and he moved around a lot. Every time he changed jobs his mother had an excuse: the head teacher didn’t like him, or they were a cliquey bunch in the staffroom. Nothing was ever Martin’s fault. Truth was he just didn’t have the personality to control the classes.’ She sighed. ‘One of my pals had a grandson in his class. Apparently it was a riot. But they’re short of qualified maths teachers, aren’t they, so he always seemed to get a job. He never learned to drive, but he had a bike and he got to work on that.’ She paused.

‘Did he still have a bike?’ Joe was wondering if that was how he’d got to Gilswick the day before. It’d be quite a stretch, but not impossible if you were used to riding long distances.’

‘He did. He went out on it yesterday, early afternoon, and he never came back.’ She looked guilty. ‘That’s why I was looking out when you turned up. I was wondering if I should tell someone he wasn’t home. But why would anyone be worried? A grown-up man.’ Another pause. ‘But Elsie would have been worried. She’d have had the police out as soon as it got dark.’ A young woman pushing a buggy walked past the window and Kitty waved as if they were old friends.

‘You said Martin lived at home “on and off”. What did you mean by that?’

She looked awkward. ‘He spent a bit of time in hospital. St David’s. You must know it.’

St David’s. The psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Kimmerston. The name still spoken in a hushed tone. When Joe had been growing up it had been a place of legend. The ogre’s castle. ‘If you don’t stop playing up, Joe Ashworth, you’ll end up in St Davey’s.’ He nodded.

Kitty went on. ‘I don’t think he minded it so much in there, and it gave his mam a break, whatever she said. They gave him pills and they seemed to work for a while, but then he’d get poorly again. Depressed. Maybe he stopped taking the medication. I don’t think it helped him being next door with Elsie fussing all over him, treating him like a bairn. She liked it when he was off sick from work. He was company for her. I said so a few times, but she didn’t like me interfering and I decided it wasn’t worth falling out over.’

‘How did Martin get on after his mother died?’ Joe wondered what that must be like: to be sheltered and pampered and then find yourself alone, with the freedom to make decisions for yourself. It’d surely blow the mind even of a sane man.

‘He had a bit of a breakdown,’ Kitty said, ‘and ended up in hospital again. I think he realized he was ill and took himself off to the doctor. Since he’s been back he’s seemed better than I’ve known him for years. He gets a bit of company from some lad that visits every couple of weeks.’ She broke off. ‘I suppose he’s the closest Martin had to a friend – you’ll need to tell him.’

‘Who was he, the visitor? A community psychiatric nurse?’

Kitty shook her head. ‘Martin had one of those when he first came out of hospital. A lass. Didn’t look much like a nurse to me. Fishnet tights and a skirt that barely covered her behind. Enough to give a healthy man palpitations.’

‘So who was the lad?’ Joe was starting to feel that he was losing the plot.

‘Name of Frank. Maybe he was a teacher with Martin, though he didn’t look like a teacher. Big lad. Tattoos. Or perhaps they met in hospital.’

‘Do you have a second name for him?’

Kitty shook her head.

‘According to the Job Centre, Martin was planning to become self-employed rather than go on Jobseeker’s Allowance. Any idea what that was about?’ Joe thought maybe Benton had set up as a private tutor. There was plenty of call for people to give a bit of extra coaching, especially in maths. And surely it’d be easier to deal with one child than a rowdy classroom. But why would that have taken him to the big house at Gilswick? There were no kids there.

‘I never really talked to him once Elsie died,’ Kitty said. ‘He was always pleasant enough. Took in my parcels if I missed the postman. A good neighbour. But if he confided in anyone, it wasn’t me.’ She paused. ‘He wouldn’t have been completely without money, if they stopped his benefit. Elsie and him never spent much at all, and his father left him a little nest egg. But maybe he felt he wanted to do his own thing – after years of trying to please his mother, maybe he wanted a bit of independence.’


Kitty gave Joe a key to the back door of Benton’s house. She’d had it since Elsie had died. Joe stood in the Benton yard and phoned Vera. ‘What do you want me to do?’

There was a pause. ‘Well, it’s not a murder scene, is it? We know Benton was killed in the flat at Gilswick Hall. We’ll get the CSIs into his house as soon as they can make it, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to have a look first. I just need something to link Benton to Randle, and we’ve got bugger-all at the moment.’

He waited before opening the door and took time to look around the yard. A washing line with a shirt and a pair of socks dangling in the sunshine. Did that mean Benton was planning to come back the night before, to take them in? Joe had never done his own washing, but Sal would never leave laundry out overnight. A shed, very tidy. Tools hanging on nails, a stepladder. In the yard a couple of pots with daffs, dying now.

Joe unlocked the door and stepped into a back kitchen. And back into time and his nana’s house. A sink and a twin-tub washing machine. Then a step into the kitchen proper. If Benton had been pampered by his mother, there was no sign here that he hadn’t been able to care for himself. No dirty pots. The small gas cooker was so clean that it shone, and a tea towel had been folded on the rail. He opened the elderly fridge to find a carton of milk, four eggs and a supermarket packet of bacon. Then a row of small jars. All clean and all empty. Joe stared at them for a moment, but couldn’t think what they might be for. The house was long and narrow and seemed squashed by the houses on either side. At this point the only light came from the small scullery window.

He walked through to a dining room, gloomy and stale. Joe wanted to open a window and let in some air. A dark wood table and four matching chairs and a sideboard. Clean enough, but dusty. There was a gas fire in a tiled surround that looked so old Joe wouldn’t have wanted to try lighting it. None of the rooms had central heating. He thought that this room hadn’t been used since Elsie had died. Maybe not even before that.

Opening the door to the small living room, Joe blinked because of the sudden light. The sun flooded in, as it had in Kitty’s house. No sofa, but two chairs covered in a shiny floral pattern facing a large TV. Nothing unusual. Nothing to add character to the man who’d spent his life here. Had it been as if he was a lodger in his mother’s house, frightened of upsetting her, of disturbing the family home?

Upstairs. The door ahead of Joe opened into a bathroom. Deep enamel bath, stained and chipped. No shower. To the left, a separate lavatory. There were three small bedrooms. The largest held a double bed, pink candlewick quilt and the smell of old woman. Talcum powder and lavender, on top of something less pleasant. And next to the bed there was still a commode with a social-services stamp on the back. Joe shut the door quickly. Let the CSIs check in there.

It seemed that Martin Benton had taken the other bedrooms for his use. The smaller one was just big enough for a single bed, small wardrobe and chest of drawers. The bed was made. Sheets and blankets, army-style. The clothes in the chest and the wardrobe were mass-produced. What struck Joe as strange was that they were all very similar. Jogging bottoms, all black. Polo shirts. Two grey fleeces. Two pairs of trousers of the sort that old men wear to work and a few folded shirts, all white. It seemed that Benton had only possessed one suit and he’d been wearing it when he died. Why had he been wearing his suit for his trip to Gilswick? It suggested something formal. An interview? Had there been a parent in Gilswick village, wanting him to tutor a child? That still couldn’t explain his presence in the valley. And would Benton really have cycled all the way from Kimmerston to Gilswick in his suit? Joe thought they still needed to find out how he’d made his way to the big house.

The second room looked out over the yard and was a revelation. It was kitted out like an office: a large desk against one wall, one main computer and a laptop. Next to the window was a filing cabinet and on a shelf above the desk a row of reference books and academic textbooks, all related not to maths, but to natural history. The impression was more of a gallery than an office. The walls were white and hung with photographs. Beautiful photographs of butterflies, moths and other insects, all blown up so that every detail could be seen. Joe’s attention was caught by a picture of a caterpillar on a laurel leaf. Every vein on the leaf was sharp and clear. There was a raindrop, a shimmering prism like a tear. It seemed to Joe that if Benton had intended to set up his own business, it would surely have been as a photographer. A camera that Joe guessed had taken up six months’ invalidity benefit was hidden in one of the filing-cabinet drawers.

If Benton had been in Gilswick to take photographs of the house or the gardens, why hadn’t he taken his camera?

The camera was in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet; the other two drawers were conventionally arranged. Each drop-file was neatly labelled with a letter of the alphabet, but all of them were empty. Joe suddenly felt a wave of depression. He imagined Benton preparing his office for business, excited perhaps; but he had been killed before he could start out. If he’d gone to the big house for work, it must have been the first contract of his self-employment and might have marked a turning point in his life. Joe checked the desk for a mobile phone. There was nothing. The landline phone was in the hall downstairs. No messages. He dialled 1471 and a disembodied voice gave him a mobile number. He made a note of it and then went outside into the sunshine, closing the door carefully behind him.

Kitty was still sitting in her bay window. He tapped on her door and she answered at once.

‘Do you know what that contraption is, at the bottom of Martin’s garden?’

‘Oh, aye,’ she said. ‘That’s his moth trap.’

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