The Moth Catcher

Chapter Forty-Seven

Holly found herself in Vera’s house in the hills for the second time during the investigation. Outside it was completely dark and the lights in the village below were hidden by the drizzle. Vera had conjured a meal out of nothing. Lamb stew and home-made bread. ‘Joanna seems to know when I’m busy. She’s a good neighbour and she looks after me.’ Holly had given up red meat years ago, but the smell was so delicious that she took a bowl. Vera poked at the fire. They sat with their food on their knees, the hunks of bread on a plate on the floor between them.

‘I never liked Lucas.’ Vera had dribbled lamb fat down the front of her jersey. She sounded smug. ‘Never trusted him.’

‘He wasn’t a bad man, though. Not at the start.’ Holly thought Lucas hadn’t ever been a villain like Jason Crow. After all, Lucas hadn’t been the person to decide that young scrotes needed a brutal regime to sort them out. That had been dreamed up by the politicians, and journalists weren’t threatening the Home Secretary of the time with exposure and legal action. The newspapers had gone for the easy targets, the men and women doing their jobs. ‘Not until Patrick Randle started hassling him.’

‘Just following orders, do you think?’ Vera kept her voice amused, but her eyes were sharp. ‘Not his responsibility if a few lads were so screwed up by their time inside that they went on to commit suicide, become alcoholic or violent themselves?’

‘Not unless he crossed the line.’ Holly supposed she should let this go, but she was tired of Vera’s bullying.

‘Ah, that line…’ Vera leaned back in her chair with her eyes half-closed. ‘If only we knew exactly where it was.’

There was a moment of silence so that Holly wondered if Vera had fallen asleep. The big woman roused herself to set her bowl on a table behind her and continued talking. ‘In terms of this investigation, it doesn’t matter what really happened all those years ago. What matters is that Patrick Randle believed that Nigel Lucas had caused his brother’s suicide and wanted the world to know what had gone on in the detention centre. And Lucas made up his mind to stop him going public.’ She looked at Holly. ‘That was premeditated murder – the worst crime there is. So do I personally think Nigel Lucas was capable of beating up the lads in his care? Tormenting them until he drove them mad? Yes, I do.’

Joe shifted uncomfortably. He’d never been much good at confrontation. ‘Talk us through the details,’ he said. ‘Tell us what happened.’

Vera beamed at him. She knew he was distracting them. ‘Aye, why not? If we go all philosophical you’ll be here all night, and I need my beauty sleep. Though maybe we should get Holly to tell it. She got to the answer before the rest of us.’ The comment was barbed, so Holly squirmed in her seat and expected a lecture on following direct orders. But Vera sat up straight in her chair and began her lecture. Holly found herself impressed by the crisp delivery and by Vera’s sharp mind.

‘Patrick came across details of his brother’s suicide, and the fact that Simon had been inside. That caused a breakdown of communication with his mother, Alicia – Patrick resented the fact that she’d kept the whole thing from him. He tracked down Shirley Hewarth and Nigel Lucas. Shirley had been Simon’s welfare officer, and Nigel the prison officer in charge of Simon’s wing. Shirley had obviously been distressed by her ex-client’s suicide and must have discussed the case at home. If you remember, Jack Hewarth thought Randle’s name was familiar.’

Vera paused for a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing.

‘Patrick wrote to Shirley and she was sympathetic. She understood that he wanted to gather more information about his brother’s experience inside. But she must have been scared about being implicated in covering up the abuse.’

‘How did Martin Benton get involved?’ Holly had always wondered about the grey ex-teacher.

‘Patrick had been in communication with Benton online for some time to discuss the finer details of moth identification. He knew Benton had the computer skills to dig around in the official records to find evidence of what had happened under Nigel Lucas’s regime, and who else knew. Patrick didn’t hide the fact that he was in the valley at Gilswick. He wanted to scare Lucas and make him feel uncomfortable. He’d already written to him to demand details of Simon’s stay in the centre. It would never have occurred to him that Lucas might contemplate murder.’

Holly thought about Patrick Randle. Life had been easy for him. He’d had a loving mother, a good education, research that he enjoyed. Why had he felt the need to dig around into the causes of his brother’s suicide, disturbing the lives of all these strangers? Would it have been different if his mother had been honest with him from the start? The story would probably all be made public now anyway. In his obsession he’d lost Becky, the girlfriend who’d adored him.

Vera continued talking. ‘Lucas watched what was going on in the valley. He was obsessive about his wife and liked to know where she was, but he had a voyeur’s curiosity about everything that happened there. He was especially interested in the house-sitter, of course. He understood the rhythm of his days. The afternoon of the murders Lucas saw Randle’s car drive up the lane to the Hall. He wouldn’t have known that Benton was there too, though. From that distance he couldn’t have seen inside the car. Lucas prepared. He knew that Randle usually spent his afternoons working in the Carswells’ garden. That was part of the house-sitting arrangement. He made his way to the Hall, waited until Randle came out of the house to go into the vegetable garden and hit him as he was about to pick leaves for the salad. He dragged him to the drive and used Randle’s own car to dump him by the track. Randle’s jacket was in the car, and Lucas put that on him so that it would look more like a hit-and-run accident. Then he went back to the attic flat to pick up any evidence that Randle might have on the regime in the detention centre. Of course he had no idea that Benton was there.’

‘So that killing wasn’t premeditated,’ Holly said.

Vera shook her head. ‘Lucas must have been scared shitless when he walked into the place and saw a middle-aged man working on a laptop on the table. Benton recognized Lucas from photos he’d seen during his research, so Benton had to die. Then Lucas took the laptop and got home by the footpath along the burn, before his wife got back from her walk and the other women returned from the WI.’ Vera paused. ‘We found Randle’s laptop in that fancy new kitchen of his, hidden in the drawer where he keeps the coffee.’ She gave a sly grin. ‘He was the only person allowed to play with the all-singing, all-dancing coffee machine, so he knew it would be safe in there.’

‘Shirley Hewarth must have worked out Lucas was the killer.’ It was Joe again. He leaned forward to warm his hands at the fire. ‘Why didn’t she tell us?’

‘Perhaps she just couldn’t see an old colleague as a double-murderer,’ Vera said. ‘Or she had a weird sense of loyalty. And, of course, if she pointed us in the direction of Lucas, her role in the cruelty at the centre would become public too. She didn’t commit the abuse, but she must have known what was going on and she kept quiet about it. That was a sort of cowardice at least.’

‘But she did suspect Lucas, didn’t she?’ Holly was becoming engrossed in the story now. ‘She tried a couple of times to get advice about what she should do. She set up the meeting with her ex-husband in the pub, and then she arranged to talk to the chair of trustees.’

‘But by the time she was due to meet him,’ Joe said, ‘Lucas had already killed her.’

‘Shirley talked to Lizzie Redhead too.’ Vera looked out of the uncurtained window, but it was still misty outside and there was nothing to see. ‘Jason had told Lizzie what had happened at the detention centre and had mentioned Shirley’s name. It was a shared secret between the women.’

‘What will happen to Elizabeth?’ Holly hadn’t liked Lizzie Redhead. Somebody else with doting parents and a comfortable life, who’d felt the need to make life difficult for other people.

‘I don’t see much point in charging her with blackmail,’ Vera said. ‘Lucas would be the only prosecution witness, and who’d believe a man convicted of a triple-murder?’

Holly was about to argue the point – she’d heard Lizzie’s attempt at blackmail – but looked at Vera and thought better of it.

‘I don’t think Lizzie will be sticking around to bother us anyway,’ Vera went on. ‘If she’s desperate to see the world, I suspect her parents will fund her adventures. Life will be much easier for them if their errant daughter is on the other side of the planet. And maybe when she comes back she’ll be a bit older and wiser.’ She paused. ‘Lizzie will have to learn a bit of responsibility on her own in the big, bad world. Sending her back inside would be an easy option and she’d never grow up.’

They were quiet again. The fire was just embers now and Vera made no move to throw on another log. Joe stretched, got up and said goodbye. Holly stood up and followed him to the door, but Vera called her back.

‘Are you okay, Hol?’

‘Yeah, just tired.’ What could she say? I’m not sure I want to do this any more. This investigation has got under my skin and sapped my confidence. I don’t want to end up like you.

‘Some cases bother us more than others,’ Vera said. The light was so dim that Holly could barely make out her face across the room. ‘That’s just the way it is. It’s not a bad thing to get involved, no matter what the textbooks say.’

‘I’m not sure I did a very good job.’ It was the closest Holly could get to an explanation for her unease.

‘Nonsense!’ There was a pause. ‘You cracked the case for us. You found the connection that mattered: that Crow, Lucas and Hewarth had all been in the same institution.’ Vera got to her feet. ‘And you saved a young woman’s life. Nothing more important than that.’ A pause. Her voice changed, became loud and hard. ‘But if ever you put your life in danger like that again, you’ll be off my team before you have time to make a pot of that disgusting herbal stuff you call tea. Now get off home. A good night’s sleep, a decent meal and a couple of days’ leave and you’ll be ready to start on the next investigation. We’ll forget the rest.’

Outside Vera’s house a breeze had blown holes in the cloud, and the lights in the valley were visible again. Holly found herself grinning. She thought that Vera was probably right. As usual.