The Moth Catcher

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Vera was on the phone to Alicia Randle. Before making the call she’d planned a gentle enquiry about any possible reason why Alicia or her son might have written to a former probation officer who ran a ragbag charity in an ex-pit-village in Northumberland. But when the phone was answered, Vera found herself asking a very different question.

‘I wonder if I might come to visit you?’

‘When?’ The veneer of politeness was being slowly eaten away by grief.

‘As soon as possible.’ Vera thought if she could get a decent pool car and start at once she could be there in five hours. ‘I’d like to come today.’

‘If you have news, Inspector, you could give it over the telephone.’ The voice was icy. Perhaps Alicia didn’t want her pleasant home, and all the memories of her son as a boy, sullied by the arrival of the woman who was investigating his death. But surely her elder son had already contaminated the place by committing suicide there.

‘There’s been another suspicious death,’ Vera said. ‘We think it might be related to Patrick’s murder. I know this a difficult time, but I have to talk to you.’

When she put down the phone Vera felt suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion. In a conversation with Alicia Randle every word had to be chosen with care. She picked up her bag and went out to the open-plan office. ‘Charlie, you’re with me. I need you to share the driving. We can’t have the North-East losing its best detective because she’s fallen asleep at the wheel. Let’s go and see how the other half lives.’

She slept most of the way and woke when they had pulled off the motorway and had started driving down country roads. The satnav had a posh southern voice not very different from Alicia Randle’s. The hedges were high and lush and everything seemed very green. In cottage gardens and orchards, fruit trees were already in blossom. There was a village with ancient black-and-white houses tilted towards a green and a squat stone church.

‘Eh, pet!’ As soon as she’d spoken Vera wondered if she were emphasizing the accent because she was nervous, very much out of her comfort zone. ‘It’s all very Midsomer, isn’t it?’

Charlie chortled, but she saw that he was very tired. ‘You have a kip in the car while I talk to her. Probably best not to go in mob-handed anyway.’

The house had once been a rectory. It was old redbrick and seemed to hold the heat of the afternoon sun. There was a garden, not as big or as organized as that of the Hall at Gilswick, but plenty of space to keep the neighbours at bay. For a small child to set his moth traps. There was long grass in an orchard that still had a rope-swing tied to one of the trees. Vera thought of Simon, the boy who’d committed suicide, and thought she’d have got rid of that. It reminded her too much of a gallows. But perhaps Alicia had been looking forward and was still thinking of a grandchild. There’d be no hope of that now.

Alicia had a man with her. ‘This is Henry.’ Her lover and intended husband. He was just as Vera would have expected: tall, grey-haired, distinguished. He spoke with the sort of voice that had once commanded obedience through half the globe. And it seemed he had been a diplomat of some sort. ‘I was posted to every continent in the world, but I’ve never been to north-east England. Shameful, I know.’ Then he gave a little laugh that made Vera think that he wasn’t ashamed at all.

They had tea outside on the lawn. Scones that Alicia must have knocked up while she was waiting for Vera to arrive. Unless she had someone to help her in the house. Vera couldn’t quite imagine her cleaning her own toilets.

‘How can we help you, Inspector?’

‘I’d prefer to talk to you on your own, Mrs Randle. If you’d be comfortable with that.’ It was more a way of Vera establishing that she was in charge of the situation than because she objected to the man’s presence.

The diplomatic Henry was already on his feet. ‘Of course, Inspector, I do understand. There are procedures to follow.’ He rested a hand on Alicia’s shoulder. ‘I’ll be inside if you need me.’

‘What is all this about, Inspector? Henry’s been helping me to organize the funeral. Patrick had so many friends. We’re trying to track them down, and most of them will need places to stay.’ Alicia was finding her own way of coping with her son’s death by focusing on detail. Keeping busy. Now she sounded a little petulant and overwrought.

‘I explained that there’d been another murder.’ Vera took another scone. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Charlie would be starving too. She’d treat him to a pile of grease, in the services on the way back. ‘Apparently there was no connection between Patrick and the new victim. She was a retired probation officer called Shirley Hewarth.’ Vera looked for a reaction, some sign that the name was familiar, but Alicia just seemed confused. Vera continued, ‘Shirley had moved into the voluntary sector and worked for an organization called Hope North-East.’

Still no flicker of recognition. ‘So you’ve come all this way to tell me that my son’s death was completely random and meaningless – the act of a psychopath. That doesn’t bring any comfort, Inspector, and you could have told me that over the phone. I’d rather you were spending your time finding the killer, before he commits another act of violence.’ Alicia picked up her cup and sipped at the tea.

The sun was still hot and the sound of wood-pigeons in the trees reminded Vera of childhood summers and made her feel drowsy. She forced herself to concentrate. ‘I said that apparently there was no link, but in fact we have found a connection between Patrick and our new victim.’ A pause. ‘At least between this place and the new victim.’

‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but you’ll have to explain. I don’t understand.’ That iciness again, as if the failure was entirely Vera’s for not being sufficiently clear.

‘We know that Shirley Hewarth received a letter from this village just over a month ago. We don’t have the letter itself, but there was a postmark and date stamp on the envelope.’

Alicia set down her cup. She was struggling for control. Glancing back at the house, Vera saw that Henry was standing by an open French window staring out at them.

‘What are you saying, Inspector?’

‘That somebody living in Wychbold wrote to Shirley Hewarth.’ Vera looked up. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence to suppose that any of the other residents were connected to a woman murdered so soon after your son. Did you write to her?’

There was a moment’s pause. Alicia’s gaze turned to Henry, who was still looking out across the lawn, but he was too far away to help her. ‘No! Of course not. I’ve never heard of her.’

‘Then I must assume that the correspondent was Patrick.’ Vera knew she sounded pompous, but this woman brought out the worst in her. She had always been chippy around the landed classes. Something to do with her father, Hector, being disinherited by his family. ‘You don’t know why Patrick might have written to a woman running a small charity for ex-offenders in south-east Northumberland?’

‘No! I can’t imagine why he would have written to anybody. The young don’t, do they, these days? It’s all email and texting. I never receive a letter now, not even from my older friends.’

Vera thought the woman had a point. What did the post van deliver to her door these days? Bills and the occasional Christmas card from relatives she’d lost touch with years ago. She thought they should find out when Shirley Hewarth last had a birthday; perhaps Patrick had sent her a card. ‘Could I look at Patrick’s room?’

Alicia looked horrified. Vera saw that she considered the request as a violation. She couldn’t imagine the large and ugly detective in her son’s space. Or perhaps she was frightened what they might find there. Did she worry that her golden boy might have been fragile and damaged, like her first son?

‘I haven’t been in since Patrick died,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t face it.’

‘We’ll go together then, shall we?’ Vera got to her feet. Her head spun for a moment. Too little sleep and not enough good food. If she didn’t get some fruit and veg inside her, she’d end up with scurvy. Her young doctor would have a fit if she could see what the team consumed in the course of an investigation.

Alicia led her through a small back door, not the French window. Henry had been watching their progress and was waiting for them in the hall. He stooped slightly towards Alicia, but didn’t touch her. They stood awkwardly for a moment. ‘All done? That’s good. I expect you want to be on your way, Inspector Stanhope. You’ve got a long trip north. Or shall I organize more tea?’

‘The Inspector wants to look at Patrick’s room.’ Alicia reached out and took the man’s hand, clung to him.

‘Well, I can see the sense in that.’ Henry spoke easily. ‘No need for you to go up though, Allie. Not if you don’t feel up to it. I can show the Inspector the way.’

There was a silence broken by the heavy ticking of an old clock in the hall. Vera waited with interest for Alicia’s response.

‘No, I’ll go too.’

‘Why don’t you come with us, Henry?’ Vera thought the last thing she needed was for Alicia to go all faint and wobbly on her, if they were on their own up there. It seemed oddly informal to be calling the man by his first name and she realized she’d never heard his surname. ‘You can give Alicia some moral support.’

So they trooped together up the main stairs and into a huge room at the front of the house. Vera stood at the door and was swept again by a tide of exhaustion. This was a waste of time. The room was full of stuff: bookshelves covered the long wall, there were fitted cupboards in the alcoves on each side of a chimney breast, boxes of paper, a pile of prints of moths and butterflies stacked against a wooden chest and all the debris of leftover adolescence – posters of rock bands, a cricket bat, photos of young sportsmen grinning into the camera. The late-afternoon sun streamed through the long sash windows and was reflected from a mirror on the wall, small glittering objects like pencil sharpeners and paperclips scattered over Patrick’s desk, a microscope lens. A trained search team would take weeks to look through it properly.

‘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:

Dear Mr Randle,

Thank you for your letter and your request for further information. If you feel it would be helpful for us to meet, I’d be glad to see you in my office. Do feel free to phone me when you’re settled in Northumberland.

Yours sincerely

Shirley Hewarth

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.’