The Moth Catcher

Chapter Twelve

Vera was hungry. Biscuits were all very well, but she hadn’t had a proper meal since the pizza the night before, and pizza never seemed very filling to her. More like a snack. She was thinking she might slide back to the village for pie and chips in The Lamb, when the door of the barn conversion on the other side of the farmhouse opened. The two Labradors she’d seen in the big house burst out, followed by a middle-aged woman. The woman was fit. Not an inch of spare flesh. She wore specs and had curly hair that looked like a Brillo pad. She wore wellingtons, jeans and a T-shirt. No coat or jersey.

‘Janet O’Kane?’ Vera was only halfway out of the car and had to shout above the sound of excited dogs.

‘Yes?’ The woman stopped, but the dogs bounded off.

‘Inspector Vera Stanhope. Have you got time for a chat?’

‘If you don’t mind a walk.’ She nodded after the Labradors. ‘They’re used to a big garden and they’re going stir-crazy in the house.’

‘It was good of you to take them on.’

‘I’m not sure what my husband makes of our new house-guests but, really, it was the least we could do. Two people dead! I can hardly believe it.’ She paused and they walked down the track for a little way. ‘I’m pleased that you can join me. I was a bit anxious about going out on my own, even with the dogs. Ridiculous, I know. John said he’d come, but he’s not been well and I could tell he’d rather not.’

She set off down the lane.

‘I’d usually go up onto the hill, but there are lambs, so it’s probably better to avoid there today. Wren’s very well behaved, but Dipper’s a bit of a bugger. He’s her son.’

It took Vera a moment to realize that she was talking about the dogs. ‘Do you look after them very often?’

‘If the Carswells are only away for a weekend I go down to the house a couple of times a day to feed them, let them out – you know. I’d love to have a dog of my own, but John’s not keen.’

‘It’s a lovely place to live,’ Vera said.

‘Isn’t it? John was an academic at Newcastle University and the plan was always to retire early and find somewhere with some space to breathe. Live the good life. Maybe it’s a bit daft, but it works for us.’ Her voice was very bright.

She took a footpath that led from the lane and onto a narrow bridge over the burn. The dogs nosed through the undergrowth. There were wood anemones, celandines and all around them birdsong. It occurred to Vera briefly that she should get out more, take a bit of exercise as the doctor had advised. At least it would stop Joe nagging, and she might even enjoy it. ‘How well do you know the Carswells?’

‘I met Helen when I was walking and she was out with the dogs. I didn’t realize who she was at first. Since then we’ve been down to the big house for drinks a few times, and John and Peter seem to get on very well. Both history geeks. Helen calls in for coffee if she’s walking our way. She’s a very sympathetic woman. I miss her company while she’s away.’

‘Very chummy.’ Vera wondered about that, if the close relationship between the O’Kanes and the people at the big house caused resentment among the other residents of Valley Farm. ‘And you get on well with your closer neighbours?’

There was a brief pause. ‘Oh, we do. We’re very lucky.’ She threw a stick and watched Dipper chase after it. ‘Sometimes I think this period of our lives is a kind of regression. We have no real responsibilities. The six of us at the farm are of an age when we should be caring for elderly parents or grandchildren, but coincidentally we’re all free of those ties. It feels a bit like being a student again. We have nobody to worry about except ourselves.’

‘The retired hedonists’ club.’ Vera was feeling a little breathless and wished the woman would slow down. She sat on a fallen tree and Janet came to join her.

‘Ah, somebody told you about that. John’s little joke. Though the pedant in me thinks it’s not quite right. It sounds as if we used to be hedonists and now we’ve stopped. In fact we’re hedonists who happen to be retired.’

‘And what form does the hedonism take?’ Vera had never been very good at grammar at school. Hadn’t seen the point, as long as you could make yourself understood, and now she was just confused.

‘Oh, nothing very dramatic! We don’t go in for orgies or hallucinogenic drugs. We probably drink too much. Eat too much. Enjoy each other’s company. Take the occasional trip into Newcastle or Kimmerston for the pictures or the theatre. A weekend away. Perhaps it’s not so much regression as a kind of desperation. We see time trickling by and want to enjoy life while we can.’ She stopped abruptly.

‘But the Carswells aren’t members?’ Vera remembered Nigel Lucas’s resentment when he spoke of the people in the big house.

‘Oh no!’ As if the idea was unthinkable. ‘And they do still have responsibilities. Peter’s chair of the Country Landowners’ Association and sits on lots of committees. Helen is something to do with the hospice in Kimmerston and a trustee of any number of charities. Annie and I are involved in the community too, but not to the same extent.’

‘The Carswells don’t have grandchildren?’ Vera remembered the photographs in the living room of the big house. No babies there.

‘Not yet! But there’s one on the way.’ Janet got to her feet. It seemed she was eager to continue with the walk. ‘That’s why they’re in Australia.’

Of course. Joe had provided that information.

‘What did your neighbours do before they retired?’ Vera knew she should move on to the detail, to questions more relevant to the investigation, but she’d always been a nosy cow.

‘Lorraine and Nigel Lucas? Nigel had his own business. He made a fortune when he sold it. Money’s definitely not a problem in that house. Lorraine was a teacher. Not in a school. She taught art to troubled youngsters and in prisons.’

Vera blinked and had to reassess her image of Lorraine Lucas. Vera had seen her as a trophy wife, attractive but with little personality. It was hard to imagine her dealing with young offenders. ‘They never lived locally before they retired?’ Vera tried to remember what the couple had told her. Joe had passed on the information that Martin Benton had worked for a charity that helped offenders and their families, and she was desperate to make connections.

‘I don’t think so. I’m sure they were based in the South. The Midlands somewhere, I think.’ She spoke as if the South was a mysterious place with ill-defined boundaries.

They began the walk back towards Valley Farm. Vera had to walk very fast to keep up. ‘Did you know Patrick Randle, the Carswells’ house-sitter?’

‘Well, I met him. Helen asked me to call in the day after he arrived, to make sure he was okay. Susan, their cleaner, was going to let Patrick in and show him the ropes, but Helen thought it would be nice if I dropped in, to welcome him to the valley. And introduce him to the dogs, of course.’

‘What did you make of him?’

‘He seemed very pleasant. Polite. Charming even. He took me up to the flat and made me tea. I said that he’d have to come to dinner one night, but we didn’t fix anything definite. I gave him our phone number in case he needed anything. That was all. I thought we’d have a couple of months to get to know him.’ Janet paused. ‘It’s still not really hit me that he’s dead.’

They climbed out on the lane, so now they could walk side by side.

‘The second victim was a man called Martin Benton,’ Vera said. ‘Did the Carswells mention anyone of that name to you?’

Janet shook her head.

‘He was found in the flat at the big house. Any reason for him being there? For example, were the Carswells planning to get any work done on the house while they were away?’

‘I don’t think so, and Susan would probably know more about that than me.’ They’d reached the houses and the dogs were chasing around the yard.

‘I’ve got a few more questions,’ Vera said.

There was a brief hesitation and Vera sensed something. Panic? Hostility? Then Janet smiled. ‘Of course. Come in. Meet John and have a coffee.’

They sat in a room at the back of the barn conversion. It seemed rather shadowy. There was a view of a long, narrow garden that ended with a drystone wall and then the open hill, but the sun was behind the house. John O’Kane was dark-haired and dark-eyed. Vera could see he would have been handsome when he was young, imagined him as a new lecturer, adored by his students. He was wearing cord trousers and a big sweater. He’d taken a chair in the window and had a box of tissues on the floor beside him. There was a bowl of boiled sweets on a table and he sucked them throughout the conversation. His words were interrupted by fits of coughing and sneezing. Vera thought he was one of those men who couldn’t be quietly ill. The room was a comfortable clutter of books and papers, quite different from the magazine-perfect style of the house next door. Vera wondered what the two couples could have in common, couldn’t quite imagine them sharing drinks on a Friday night and laughing at the same jokes.

‘Could you both tell me what you were doing yesterday afternoon and evening?’ She was sitting at a scrubbed pine table. There was a jam jar of daffodils, a seed catalogue and a scattering of the Sunday papers from a couple of days ago.

‘I was at WI in the afternoon,’ Janet said. ‘I went with Annie. Lorraine says it’s not really her thing, though I’m sure she’d enjoy it if she gave it a try. It’s not all jam and Jerusalem these days.’ She seemed aware that she was talking too much and her voice tailed off.

‘Mr O’Kane?’ Vera turned to the man.

‘I was here all afternoon.’

‘You didn’t go out at all?’

‘I’ve not been well.’ He sounded fractious, like a difficult child. ‘And besides, Janet’s the one who feels the need for fresh air. I was reading.’

‘John’s working on a book.’ The woman managed to sound proud and apologetic at the same time.

‘The history of the Border Reivers,’ he said. ‘My subject.’

‘Fascinating.’ Vera turned her attention back to Janet. ‘Did you notice anyone in the lane when you were driving back from the WI?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that, of course. Annie phoned to say you’d asked her. But no, I didn’t see anyone.’

‘Does the name Martin Benton mean anything to you, Mr O’Kane?’

‘Who’s he?’ The professor scowled.

Vera thought O’Kane had been pandered to throughout his career and couldn’t quite get used to being a retired old git without a secretary or fawning students. Then she decided she might be bored and demanding, if she’d just retired. ‘He’s the man who was found dead in the attic of the big house with multiple stab wounds to the chest.’

There was a pause. ‘No,’ the professor said at last. ‘I’ve never heard the name before.’

‘And later in the evening?’ Vera asked. ‘What did you do then?’

‘At about eight o’clock we went next door for drinks,’ John said. ‘Usually we only meet up on a Friday night. It’s something of a weekly ritual. Nigel prides himself on making the best G &T in the North, and I wouldn’t disagree. It marks the beginning of the weekend for us retired people who no longer work away from home during the week. Last night was a bit special, because it was midweek and Lorraine’s birthday.’

‘How did you get next door?’ Vera was starting to lose patience with him.

‘I might be ill, Inspector, but I was perfectly able to walk a few yards.’

‘Did you go this way, through the garden or through the front door?’ She found herself glaring at him. Something of his arrogance reminded her of her father, Hector.

Again there was a moment’s silence and this time Janet answered. ‘John was ready before me, and he went in by the front door. Our Friday socials are quite formal, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. We make an effort, dress up a bit. And we did exactly the same last night for Lorraine’s party. You know how it is.’ Vera didn’t and Janet continued. ‘We were going to eat next door too and I’d made a pudding, so I just went out the back way and let myself into Lorraine’s kitchen. I’d made a cheesecake and it needed to go in the fridge.’

‘Their back door wasn’t locked?’

‘No, none of us lock our doors during the day, if we’re in.’

‘Did either of you notice anything unusual while you were on the way to the farmhouse?’

‘If we’d seen a stranger brandishing a knife, I really think we might have mentioned it, Inspector.’ The professor again. His face seemed very red. Vera couldn’t tell if he really had a fever or if the questions were making him angry or anxious.

‘There might have been an incident that seemed insignificant at the time.’ Her voice was bland. ‘A car on the lane. A walker down by the burn. It would help if you could remember anything of that sort.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at all.’

‘Mrs O’Kane?’

Janet took more time to consider. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I was in the garden for a little while because I shut the hens away before going next door. We lock them up at night because of foxes, and I knew I wouldn’t want to do it later. I don’t remember seeing anyone on the hill. I’m sorry. I wish I could help.’

In the silence that followed Vera could hear the hens at the bottom of the garden. She thought they sounded like old women gossiping. That’s all I am. An old woman who gossips. She stood up and sensed the relief in the room. It was physical, like a smell.

John O’Kane gave her a little wave, but made no move to get to his feet. Janet walked with her to the door. ‘Call in again, Inspector. Any time.’ A polite formula that certainly wasn’t sincere.

Vera got into the car and drove down the lane. There were messages on her phone, but she didn’t want to read them until later. She thought all the residents of Valley Farm were watching to make sure that she’d driven away.