Chapter Thirty-Seven

Back in the police station Vera was reassessing the case. There were no notes on the desk. This wasn’t a formal meeting. Anyone looking in at her office would think she’d fallen asleep. She lay back in her chair and her feet were resting on a low stool covered with bilious-green velour. Nobody could remember how the stool had come into her office and usually it sat in a corner covered with a pile of files. The weight of her feet in their walkers’ sandals had caused a permanent dent in the cushion. Vera shut her eyes. She thought concentration was the skill most required of a good detective. Concentration and an innate nosiness.

She picked apart the elements of the inquiry in her mind to see if there was a line of investigation that had been missed. It was too easy to rush forward in a case, especially if new details came to light, and to forget incidental facts that had come to light earlier in the process. An investigation couldn’t be a route march. More a meander, and that had always been Vera’s preferred way of walking. After fifteen minutes she got to her feet, walked to the door and shouted out into the open-plan office where her detectives were working, ‘Joe. A minute!’

He came into the office, pushed aside the stool and took the chair on the opposite side of her desk.

‘Did anyone ever go and take a statement from Jason Crow?’

It took him a moment to place the name.

‘Jason Crow. Charlie’s Teflon man. Former employer, and probable lover, of Lizzie Redhead,’ Vera said.

‘Charlie went out to see him.’ Joe struggled to remember the details. ‘Crow said he hadn’t had any contact with Lizzie since he sacked her, and he’d never met Martin Benton.’

Vera looked up. ‘Did you see Lizzie by the way? In Annie Redhead’s car when we were on our way out of the valley.’

‘No.’

‘I thought you and Holly were half-asleep.’ She knew she sounded smug, but didn’t care.

‘Why didn’t you say at the time?’

Vera didn’t know how to answer that. Sometimes she liked to hoard facts. Secrets made her feel superior. It had become a habit. A bad habit. She’d bollock any of her team if they tried it.

‘I can’t see how Crow can be relevant,’ Joe said. ‘Lizzie was inside when all the murders happened. Jason might be a scumbag who got the Redheads’ business on the cheap, but he had no connection with Randle or Benton.’

‘Has he been inside? I know the name, and that he’s been in bother in the past. He could have come across Shirley Hewarth when she was a welfare officer in the nick. She wasn’t only at Sittingwell.’ Vera was thinking this probably wouldn’t lead anywhere, but there was an itch in her brain and she had to scratch. A bit like when the eczema on her leg was particularly bad.

‘I’ll have to check.’

‘Well, run along and do that then, bonny lad.’

He returned a few moments later. ‘Nothing since he was a juvenile, and that was just a bit of shoplifting. He got three months in a detention centre.’

She nodded. The detention centres had been another failed attempt at tackling youth crime. The short, sharp shock that just made the lads bitter. And much fitter, so they could run faster from the scene of their burglaries.

‘I might just go along and have a word with him all the same,’ she said. That itch again. Impossible to ignore, but probably nothing to worry about.


Crow lived on the outskirts of Kimmerston in one of the executive developments that Hector had railed about every time he saw them. Shoddy, pretentious blots on the landscapes. Sitting in her Land Rover outside the house, Vera could hear her father’s voice in her head and couldn’t help smiling. Hector had delighted in coming across a smart new estate so that he could vent his anger and display his prejudices.

She rang the bell. It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday and she thought Jason was unlikely to be there on his own. Despite any fling he might have had with Lizzie, there’d probably be a wife, older kids. This wasn’t the home of a single man. If Jason had been on his own he’d have gone for one of the flash new apartments on Newcastle’s Quayside. Rumour had it that he could afford to buy one in cash, if the fancy took him, and one of his companies probably owned half of them anyway.

The door was opened by a man. Middle-aged. Sandy-hair that might once have been ginger. Freckles. A naughty schoolboy, grown up.

‘Sorry, we don’t buy at the door.’ An unexpectedly pleasant voice. Vera was starting to see how he’d slid away from so many criminal charges. This wasn’t a thug or a bruiser. Crow would be charming and plausible, and he probably had friends in high places. She could imagine he’d be a good golfer.

‘And I’m not selling.’ Vera didn’t bother looking for her warrant card. She hated scrambling in her bag to find it. It looked unprofessional. ‘Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope.’

He raised his eyebrows. A gesture of amusement. They’ll let anyone join the service these days. ‘Sorry, Inspector. You’d better come in.’

Inside, the place was less flash than she’d imagined. Classier. A lot of wood. Uncluttered. Plain painted walls with some pieces of art that drew her in and made her stare. Photos of two daughters, one on her graduation throwing a mortar board in the air. A piano. ‘Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday.’

‘I was at my desk,’ he said. ‘I work mostly from home now. One of the perks of being boss. I don’t keep regular hours. Come into the office.’ He walked ahead of her and she realized that despite being middle-aged, he had the body of an athlete. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and his arms were muscular. Her glance followed his spine down to his legs and she realized why Lizzie had been attracted, despite the difference in their ages.

The office was at the back of the house and looked out into the garden. A long lawn with a pergola at the end. Closer to the house a trampoline that looked as if it was no longer used. Inside the office there was custom-built furniture and a rack of heavy-duty filing cabinets. Jason was old enough to prefer paper. He sat on the desk and nodded for her to take a seat so that she was looking up at him. ‘I hope this won’t take too long. I have to leave in ten minutes. I’m meeting a friend.’ An apologetic smile to take the aggression from the words.

‘Your family not about?’

‘They’ve been in France for Easter. I’m joining them next week and we’ll travel back together.’ He paused. ‘What is this about?’

‘Lizzie Redhead,’ Vera said.

‘Ah yes, Lizzie. One of my more spectacular mistakes.’ A boyish grin that didn’t quite convince.

‘Tell me.’

For a moment he said nothing. ‘She came to work for me.’

‘And then?’

‘And then I fell for her, Inspector. Hook, line and sinker. Not my usual style. I’m happily married. If I stray occasionally, it’s recreational. No strings on either side. But Lizzie was different.’

‘In what way different?’ Vera really was curious to know.

There was another silence. Vera thought that he’d been sitting here, his family away, thinking about Lizzie. And now he wanted to talk about her to the only person who would listen. Even if that person was a cop.

‘She was wild, funny and very beautiful. Most women I meet are attracted to me. Or attracted to my money. Lizzie didn’t seem to be. I fell for her. I’d have done anything for her by the end. When we first got together I couldn’t quite believe it.’

Vera wasn’t sure she believed this story even now. It felt like something she chuckled over in a women’s magazine while she was waiting to see the dentist. But what would she know about relationships? Like Holly, she was a loner. ‘Then Lizzie ripped you off.’

‘At first I couldn’t accept that she’d done it.’ He paused and played with the wedding ring on his finger. ‘It sounds daft, but I thought we were soulmates.’ A pause. ‘I grew up too quickly, got into bother because that was the way my family earned a living. I’d never had anything like a romantic encounter. Sex was almost always a financial arrangement. Even my marriage felt a bit like that. I was ready to settle down and have kids, and Kate could give me stability and a family. And a bit of respectability. Her background’s very different from mine.’ He paused again and stared out of the window. ‘With Lizzie, it was like falling in love for the first time. She was bonkers, you know. Fearless. We made love in places I wouldn’t have dreamed of. On building sites, in half-built houses, in the car by the side of a busy road. It wasn’t just the sex. I told her stuff I hadn’t told anyone else in the world. And all the time she was stealing from me. Fiddling the books and sliding cash into her own online accounts.’

‘So she had to pay.’ Vera pulled his attention back into the room.

He shrugged. ‘In my position you can’t be seen to let people take the piss. Even if you want to.’ He paused again. ‘If she’d asked for the money, I’d have given it to her. I’d have left my wife and married her. But she made a fool out of me and I couldn’t let that go.’

‘You could have come to us. She’d have been prosecuted.’

‘And got a fine that her parents would have paid! Or a suspended sentence.’ His face was red and she saw how Jason might get, if he was angry. Mad. Violent. Even against someone he claimed to love.

‘So you persuaded her parents to sell you their business.’

‘I’ve got a brother who works in that field. Not the sharpest tool in the box, so occasionally he needs a hand. He wanted to expand into Kimmerston. It seemed a good way of helping him out and showing people it wasn’t a good idea to mess me about.’

‘You threatened Sam and Annie Redhead.’ Vera’s voice was quiet.

‘I didn’t need to.’ The words came back at her immediately.

‘Of course. You have a reputation.’ She hoped he could hear the sneer in her voice. ‘You’re a hard man.’

There was a moment of silence before Vera continued. ‘Then Lizzie got into a fight in a bar and was sent to prison anyway.’

‘That was nothing to do with me.’ He paused. ‘I heard that she went crazy when we separated. Perhaps I was good for her and kept her sane for a while. She shouldn’t have ripped me off. We’d have been good for each other.’ Another pause. ‘How is she anyway?’

‘Out of prison,’ Vera said. ‘Released today.’ Looking up, she could tell this wasn’t news to him. He’d been keeping tabs on Lizzie. He was still obsessed with her. Vera thought she should check to see if Jason had visited her in Sittingwell.

‘Why are you here?’ As if it had just occurred to him to ask. ‘She can’t have got into trouble already, if she was only released today.’ His voice light, as if he didn’t give a toss.

‘I’m investigating the murders in the valley at Gilswick. You’ll have seen the story all over the news. I don’t suppose you knew any of the victims?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ The answer came quickly, without thought. Even if he’d been best buddies with Martin Benton, or Shirley Hewarth had been one of his recreational shags, he’d have denied it. Not cooperating with the police would be a habit, like Vera’s need to have secrets.

‘You hear things,’ Vera said. ‘You have contacts all over the county. Anyone saying anything about the murders in Gilswick?’

‘I’m a businessman.’ Jason pushed himself off the desk and looked at his watch. ‘I don’t have those kinds of contacts.’

‘Can you think why someone would want to murder three people? Different people. A young graduate, a teacher with mental-health problems and a social worker.’ Because Jason might not mix with contract killers, but he’d make sure he knew what was going on in his patch. His livelihood depended on it.

This time he seemed to consider the question before answering. ‘Someone screwed up,’ he said. ‘An angry ex-con. People get sent to prison to sort them out, but it often makes things worse. Plays with their minds.’

‘Was that what happened to you?’

‘Nah.’ He grinned. ‘I was one of the people detention worked for. A success story. Inside once and never in trouble again.’

‘Never convicted at least.’ Now, she saw, the conversation was becoming a game again. Perhaps he was already regretting being so frank. ‘How do you think Lizzie will have handled being inside?’

‘She’s like me. A natural survivor. And she was in an open nick, wasn’t she? A doddle.’ Jason looked at his watch again. ‘Look, I’ve enjoyed the chat, Inspector, but I’ve got to go.’

They walked together through the house. Some of the finishes, and the way the rooms were laid out, reminded Vera of the Valley Farm conversions.

‘Did you have anything to do with the development in the valley at Gilswick?’

‘The two barns? And then the renovation of the farmhouse? Yes, that was done by one of my companies.’ He was standing by the front door, impatient for her to go.

‘A bit of a coincidence,’ Vera said. ‘You built the house where Lizzie Redhead’s parents live.’

‘Not really. Anything high-end, built in this part of the county, I’ve probably got a hand in it.’

She walked through the door. He grabbed a jacket from the bottom of the stairs and followed her out. So it seemed he really did have a meeting; he didn’t just want to get rid of her.

‘Lizzie Redhead,’ she said.

‘What about her?’

‘How do you feel about her now?’

She expected another flip and sarcastic comment, but this time Jason considered before answering. ‘I still dream about her. I lie beside my wife at night, but I dream about Lizzie.’

She took her time walking down the path to the road where her Land Rover was parked. Jason climbed into a sports car standing on the drive in front of the house; there was the sound of screeching tyres and he drove away. Vera looked after him, wondering who he was in such a hurry to meet.

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