The Moth Catcher

Chapter Eighteen

Lizzie watched the detective leave the room. She’d been surprised to see him there when the screw had brought her in. She’d been expecting Shirley Hewarth. Joe Ashworth hadn’t seemed much like a detective to her. He was too gentle. Good-looking enough, but not her type. He talked more like a doctor or a priest. He’d be no real match for her. There’d be no steel in him. No fire. Nothing to hit against.

She looked out of the window while she waited for her new visitor to arrive, imagined Ashworth walking out through the main door, getting into his car and driving through the gate. She thought she’d soon be there too. Outside. The women talked about Outside as if it was a different place in a different universe. But lots of them were at Sittingwell because they were working towards a release date after years inside a high-security prison. Lizzie had met murderers here. Women who’d killed their kids. Their men. Of course they’d be daunted to be leaving. She didn’t think she’d find it so hard to adjust to the outside world. She had plans.

The policeman’s visit had been a shock. She couldn’t have anticipated a double-murder in the valley. She was running through the implications of the news when the door opened and Shirley Hewarth came in. The woman always looked very smart. Professional. Lizzie liked that about her. She thought appearances mattered. Shirley had brought a bag of sweets and opened them on the table, nodded for Lizzie to take one. Lizzie took a sherbet lemon. Her favourite. She liked the sharp burst of sherbet on her tongue when the hard lemon case was shattered.

‘So, Lizzie. Only a few days until your release. We should be thinking of your future.’

Lizzie nodded. She thought any screw listening in to the conversation would be completely misled. The conversation sounded just like any other pre-release interview between a social worker and an offender. They would never guess that Shirley and Lizzie shared secrets. And, sure enough, there were footsteps on the parquet floor in the hall outside as the officer moved away to sit at the desk in reception.

‘I’m going to chat with your mother,’ Shirley went on. ‘Is that okay with you?’

‘Why do you need to talk to her?’ Lizzie looked up sharply.

‘You’ll be staying with her, won’t you?’

Lizzie thought about that. Her parents didn’t feature in the pictures she held in her head. But she was suddenly surprised by a wave of emotion as she thought how it would be good to spend some time with them. Inside, she’d come to enjoy the ritual of daily life. The calmness of the expected. Her parents would provide that for her too. It would be a good place to make decisions and set her up for her next big adventure.

‘You won’t tell them about Jason,’ Lizzie said. She thought she’d shared too much with the social worker. Shirley had been a good listener and she’d seemed to understand. Lizzie hadn’t meant to pass on Jason’s secrets. They’d spilled out when Shirley had asked her about her experience of prison.

‘Everything between us is confidential. You know that.’

‘There was a murder in the valley. A young man called Patrick Randle.’ Lizzie realized that she was moved by the thought. Although she’d never met Patrick, she pictured a good-looking young man lying on a table in a mortuary. White and waxy. Some of the women in Sittingwell knew about violent death and had described the procedure. Even those inside for less serious crimes were fascinated and borrowed books about famous killers from the prison library. They told her all about the process, about the crime-scene investigation and the post-mortem, forensics and DNA. She knew where the pathologist cut into the body. She looked at Shirley, expecting a comment, but none came. ‘And an older man.’ Lizzie had no interest in picturing his body.

‘You’ve heard about that?’ Shirley spoke at last. She seemed surprised. Upset.

‘Were you going to tell me?’

‘Of course!’

Lizzie looked at the social worker. She thought Shirley Hewarth had secrets too – so many secrets that they might get confused in the woman’s head.

‘How did you know about the murders?’ Shirley sounded shaken, uncertain. Lizzie thought she seemed tired, with that deep exhaustion that comes from several nights without any sleep.

‘I’ve just been interviewed by a detective.’ Lizzie looked up. ‘He asked me about the murders. Because they happened close to where my parents live. He thought Jason might be involved.’

A silence. Outside someone was walking on the gravel path beyond the window and they both waited until the sound moved away.

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Nothing,’ Lizzie said. ‘There was nothing to say. Two strangers were killed in the valley. What could that have to do with me or Jason?’

‘Of course.’ Shirley wiped her hand across her forehead and Lizzie thought again that she looked exhausted. ‘We’ll have to think about finding you work,’ Shirley said, her voice suddenly bright and professional. ‘I thought the hospitality industry might suit you. You’re articulate and present very well, and you’ll have picked up a lot from your parents. You might consider a college course in September, but it would be good to get some hands-on experience before that.’

There was another silence. Lizzie couldn’t imagine working in a restaurant. She’d never been any good at taking orders. She had travel in her head. Wide spaces, to contrast with this place. Huge grasslands and orange deserts. Once she’d made her peace with her family and raised the funds, she’d disappear overseas. She’d joined the creative writing group in Sittingwell and had secret dreams of writing a book to capture her travels. Didn’t writers make money?

‘I’ve been thinking I should go to the police.’ The social worker’s voice burst into Lizzie’s dreams. ‘Explain about Jason. This is murder, after all. The things he told you might be more relevant than you realize.’

‘No!’ Lizzie forced her voice to be calm. ‘You promised. Everything we discussed was confidential. I trusted you.’

Shirley didn’t reply.

‘I’ll be out soon and we can discuss things properly. Will you at least wait until then?’

‘I can’t stop thinking about it,’ Shirley said. ‘It’s making me ill. There are things you don’t understand. Martin Benton, the older victim, used to work for me.’

‘Do you know who killed him?’ Lizzie felt another tingle of excitement. She could understand why some of the women inside loved those true-crime books. The ones with pictures of blank-faced killers staring out of the pages. There was something compulsive about the sadism. The sexual violence. She remembered again Jason’s words, his hard laughter and his scorn at her tears. The books the women read were all about pain and humiliation.

There was another long silence before Shirley spoke again. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘So you’ve nothing to tell the police.’ When she was a child and hadn’t been able to persuade her friends to do as she wanted, Lizzie had thrown tantrums, pulled hair and dug fingernails into soft flesh. Now she’d learned to be more subtle, more reasonable. ‘What can you contribute to the investigation? You’ll just be another crank with weird stories to tell.’

‘I suppose that’s true.’ Shirley was about to stand up.

‘The older dead man,’ Lizzie said. ‘The one who worked for you. What’s his role in all this?’

‘I don’t know.’ Now Shirley did get to her feet. She began to walk towards the door to call to the officer sitting at the reception desk in the grand lobby that she was ready to go. ‘Really, I can’t see how he might have got caught up in this business at all. I don’t understand any of it.’

Watching from her chair, Lizzie thought Shirley was lying.