The Moth Catcher (12 page)

‘Not daft at all.’ Again Vera thought of the tiny community at Valley Farm. This case seemed to be all about people following their dreams. It had appeared a bit self-indulgent to her. ‘But we still don’t have any idea what his business might have been?’

Holly shook her head. ‘He had one friend at the charity. An ex-offender called Frank Sloan. Martin told Frank that he’d approve of the work that he was planning, but gave him no more details.’

‘So why the secrecy?’ Vera looked at Joe. ‘I hope you’ve got something for me, because we’ve got bugger-all to work on so far.’

‘I know how he travelled to Gilswick yesterday.’

‘So?’ Vera stretched and pretended not to be pleased. It didn’t do to have favourites.

‘He left his bike chained up at the bus station and got the bus. It left Kimmerston at two-thirty and arrived into Gilswick an hour later. It stops everywhere.’ Joe paused. ‘I spoke to the driver. Most of his passengers are regulars coming back from Kimmerston after shopping – Tuesday’s a bit busier than usual because it’s market day – so he noticed the stranger. He described Benton exactly, down to the suit. I got uniform to check, and the bike was still in the racks in the bus station.’

‘And how did our grey man get from the village to the big house?’

‘Randle picked him up in his car. The bus stops at Gilswick for quarter of an hour before heading back to town. The driver went into the post office to buy a can of pop and saw Benton get into the VW.’ Joe allowed himself a brief grin. ‘The guy described Randle’s car perfectly.’

‘And we know that both men arrived at the big house, because Randle’s VW was found there.’ Vera was trying to work out where everyone else in the valley had been at the time. Janet and Annie had been in the village hall for the WI, Nigel had been in the supermarket at Kimmerston and his wife had been painting at home. Vera had lost track of Percy Douglas and his daughter, who lived in the bungalow. She’d get Hol to knock up some sort of chart or spreadsheet for witness movements. It was the sort of thing she was good at.

‘What I don’t understand,’ Joe was saying, ‘is how Randle came to be in the ditch. We can assume that both men went into the flat. There were two mugs on the draining board. How did they come to be separated?’

‘And why was Benton wearing a suit?’ Holly surprised herself by speaking without having considered the words first and coloured slightly. ‘I mean, if they intended going out into the garden to look at moths, wouldn’t he wear something more casual?’ She looked at her colleagues.

‘Of course he would.’ Vera wondered how she could show that she was pleased with Holly’s contribution without sounding patronizing. In the end it was easier to do nothing. ‘So we’ve ended up with lots more questions.’

There was a silence. In the main office the hum of conversation continued. Outside there was the rumble of rush-hour traffic.

Holly looked at her watch. ‘I should get off to the station to meet Alicia Randle. I want to be there when the train arrives. I haven’t booked anywhere for dinner. Any ideas?’

‘What about Annie’s, that restaurant on the square?’ Vera thought there was nothing wrong with killing two birds with one stone. ‘Haven’t they got a private dining room? We went there once for the boss’s leaving do. I’ll see if that’s free. We’ll see you there, Hol. About seven?’

It was a kind of dismissal and Holly went. Joe and Vera were left alone. There was another moment of silence and then Joe got to his feet too.

‘Just a minute.’ Vera thought more clearly when he was there. Her brain was muddled with detail, but Joe was straightforward. He could see the wood for the trees. She poured more coffee into both their mugs. It was thick like drain-sludge. ‘Do you really think the interest in moths is what links these men? I just can’t see that as a motive for murder.’

‘I think it was what brought them together in the first place.’ Joe tried the coffee, pulled a face and stuck the mug on the windowsill. ‘There’ll be a website, won’t there? Online contact between moth-obsessives. It’s too much coincidence to think they never had any contact.’

‘We’ll get Holly to look into that in the morning.’

‘They might have become friends,’ Joe went on. ‘Of a sort, at least. An online relationship. Benton was shy, socially awkward. If this was their first meeting, perhaps the suit was about him wanting to make a good impression.’

‘So the meeting in the big house might not have been about work.’ Vera wondered if she could be described as socially awkward. Once she retired, would all her contact with the outside world be made online? ‘It might have been about friendship. And if that was the case, why did both men have to die?’

Annie stood at the window in the bedroom and watched until she saw the detective’s car disappear down the lane towards the village. The house faced south and the valley seemed a lake of sunshine. It was only as the car joined the main road that she felt the muscles in her neck and face become relaxed. She realized how tight her whole body had been while Vera Stanhope had been prowling around their territory, prodding for answers, intruding into their space.

There was a moment of euphoria, like bursts of sunlight in her brain. Of course there was nothing to worry about after all. She was tempted to call Lorraine and Jan and suggest an impromptu bottle of wine. A girly gossip and some fizz to celebrate having Valley Farm to themselves again. Then she remembered that two men were dead and that although she couldn’t see into the big house because of the trees, there would still be people there. People in paper overalls and masks and they’d be searching for physical evidence, just as Vera Stanhope had been searching for connections in their own small community.

She heard footsteps on the bare wood of the stairs and Sam stood behind her. ‘She’s gone then.’

‘Aye.’

‘I was thinking we should go away,’ he said. He looked pale and he had a bit of a paunch. She thought, as she always did when she saw him face-on, that he could do with more exercise. Walk to the shop in the village if the weather was nice, instead of taking the car. Sometimes she panicked at the thought that he would die before her; then she decided that the worry was ridiculous.
You’re the one to talk. A size sixteen these days! If anyone’s going to have a heart attack, it’s you.

Sam came up behind her and they looked together down at the burn. ‘We always said we’d do a cruise when we had the time, didn’t we? Let’s just go for it. Book something last-minute. The Med. The Caribbean. It doesn’t matter where it is.’

Oh yes!
She imagined herself dressed in something silk and floaty, standing on the deck of a sleek white liner. Then she thought she’d done enough running away, and she turned slowly so that she was facing Sam and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Let’s do that later,’ she said. ‘When all this is over. I couldn’t enjoy it properly now. Besides, there’s Lizzie to think about. She’ll be home any day. We can’t let her come back to an empty house.’

He shrugged and she could tell he was disappointed. The holiday had been his big idea for making her happy. A sacrifice, because he was never really happy away from home. His comfort zone had distinct geographical boundaries: the Tyne to the south, the North Sea to the east and the Scottish border to the north. He’d venture west into Cumbria if he was pushed, but he didn’t really enjoy it.

She tried to explain. ‘I’m such a control freak. I know I can’t control the police investigation, but at least we can be here, watching what’s happening. Seeing what dirt gets dug up and thrown around. I’d be a nervous wreck if we were too far away to get any information.’ He hadn’t responded to her comment about Lizzie and she decided not to push it. The glass wall that was their daughter still stood between them.

‘You’re paranoid,’ he said, but his voice was gentle.

She stroked his cheek. ‘And you’re very, very kind.’

There was a noise in the yard below them and they saw Lorraine emerge from the farmhouse. She carried a satchel over her shoulder; inside there would be her paints and brushes. She was wearing jeans and a sloppy hand-knitted jersey, and from this distance she looked about eighteen. Annie felt a stab of jealousy. Sometimes she and Jan speculated that Nigel’s wife had had work done on her face. A tuck or a lift, or Botox. And how could she stay so skinny? But really there was no sign of surgery; it must be down to genes or luck. Something must have made Lorraine aware of them looking down at her, because she turned and waved. Annie opened the window.

‘I’m just going to catch the last of this light.’ Lorraine sounded childishly happy. Annie wondered if she’d been drinking already, or if Vera Stanhope’s disappearance had caused her to relax suddenly too. ‘Isn’t it fabulous?’

‘Should you be going out on your own? The police don’t seem to have caught anyone yet.’ Annie could see what Lorraine meant about the light, though. It was seductive. She felt she could walk into it and drown.

‘I’m not going very far, and I’ll stay on the lane. You’ll hear me if I scream.’ Lorraine gave a little giggle, but Annie shivered at the thought of anyone screaming alone in the valley.

‘Come in for a glass of wine when you’ve finished, so we know you’re safe. We’ll get Jan to come along too.’

But Lorraine was already heading down the track and Annie wasn’t sure if she’d heard her.

Sam was cooking supper when Lorraine called at the house. She knocked at the back door and then came straight into the kitchen, still carrying the satchel. She looked radiant. Annie sensed Sam stiffen. The kitchen was his workspace and he didn’t like anyone other than Annie there. Not even a woman as bonny as Lorraine.

‘Come through,’ Annie said. ‘It gets cold when the sun goes down. I’ve just lit the wood-burner.’ She reached into the fridge for a bottle of Prosecco and followed Lorraine out.

In the living room Lorraine sat on the floor in front of the stove. The sun was low now and the room was in shadow.

‘Did you finish your painting?’ Annie twisted the bottle until she felt the pressure behind the cork and poured the wine into the glasses.

‘Not quite.’

So it would be no good asking to see it. Lorraine never showed her work until it was done. Annie had once asked how she’d got into the painting. Lorraine had said she’d run art classes in prison and it had grown from there. Now it seemed to have taken over all her life. As if any minute not painting was wasted.

‘Shall I send Jan a text?’ Annie said. ‘See if she wants to join us?’

‘No point.’ Lorraine grinned. ‘I walked past her house and she’s fast asleep in the rocking chair with those great dogs at her feet. I could hear her snoring from outside.’

Annie opened the door of the wood-burner and pushed in another log. She had to reach across Lorraine to do so. Even close to, the woman’s skin was smooth and flawless.

‘What did you make of that detective?’ Lorraine had almost finished the first glass of wine.

‘Quite a character.’ Annie decided to be noncommittal.

‘A bit of a monster, I thought, but clever. She makes you think that she’s really stupid, then comes out with a question that surprises you because it’s so perceptive.’

‘Yes!’ Annie thought just then that
Lorraine
was one of the most perceptive women she knew.

‘What do you think was going on down there in the big house?’ Lorraine narrowed her eyes. ‘Nigel thinks it was what he called “some random loony”, but I’m not so sure. You wouldn’t just wander into the valley by chance, would you? So what actually happened there that led to two murders?’

‘The detective asked us about an older man – the second victim – who was killed in the attic flat.’ Annie found herself being drawn into the conversation despite herself. She’d been terrified of dying since she was a child. Not the reality of pain or illness, but the idea of the world going on without her. She still had nightmares about suddenly disappearing, being swallowed up by the dark. Yet she found herself fascinated by these sudden deaths. Was it because, although they’d happened so close to home, the people involved were strangers? She felt like an extra in a TV drama. It was hard to believe the situation was real.

‘Martin Benton.’ Lorraine reached out and poured herself more wine. ‘The name’s on the BBC news website now. I checked before I came out. The police are asking for information about him.’

‘Did Vera Stanhope question you about yesterday evening?’ Annie could imagine Lorraine giving quite the wrong impression. She could be flippant, and was given to exaggeration.
We were all pissed, of course! We always get pissed on party nights. It’s the only entertainment there is out here.

But Lorraine shook her head. ‘She was more interested in earlier in the day. The late afternoon and early evening. Percy found Patrick Randle’s body when he was driving home from The Lamb at teatime, so they think both murders must have happened before then. The police won’t be bothered by a few pensioners partying later that night.’

‘No.’ But Annie thought the fat detective would be interested in everything they did. She was that sort of woman. She allowed her eyes to glance at the clock on the wall. Sam took food seriously. He’d get moody if he thought the meal he’d prepared was spoiling.

Lorraine must have noticed because she stood up and set her glass carefully on the coffee table. She wasn’t always so tactful. ‘I must go. Nigel might be worrying about me. I’m surprised he hasn’t phoned to check that I’m okay.’

Annie thought Nigel would know exactly where Lorraine was. He watched her. He kept binoculars in the upstairs den and pretended they were to look for birds and animals in the woods, but Annie knew better than that. Sometimes she thought it was lovely that he obviously adored his wife, that he couldn’t let her out of his sight. Mostly she thought it was creepy. It occurred to her that if anyone had seen a stranger in the valley the afternoon before, it would be Nigel, staring out of his upstairs window keeping track of them all.

Annie let Lorraine out of the front door so they wouldn’t disturb Sam in the kitchen. On the stone step Lorraine paused for a moment.