The Moth Catcher (17 page)

The phone rang half an hour later and the university admin officer had all the information Holly needed. ‘Rebecca Brown’s at home with her parents in County Durham.’ She read out the address. ‘It’s still the Easter holidays and she won’t be back at the university until the middle of next week. This is her mobile number.’ She finished the call without asking any questions. Holly couldn’t tell if she was very busy or very discreet.

A male voice answered Rebecca’s mobile. ‘Who is it?’ Then, without waiting for an answer, ‘Becky’s not up to talking now.’ He sounded angry.

Holly supposed this meant that Rebecca had seen the news about Patrick’s death and had been upset by it. She introduced herself. ‘And who are you?’ Keeping the question polite.

‘I’m her brother. The press have tracked her down. So-called friends must have told them she knew Patrick. It’s been a nightmare. We’re worried that if someone doesn’t answer her phone, they’ll just turn up on the doorstep.’

‘We’ll need to talk to her, I’m afraid. Can I come there?’

There was a pause and Holly heard a muffled conversation in the background. ‘When do you want to come?’

‘Now,’ she said. ‘If that’s all right.’ She thought again that she’d be glad to escape the office and Kimmerston.

The young protector at the end of the phone agreed and gave directions.

The Browns lived in a small market town on the edge of the Durham moors. Once it must have been prosperous. There were grand Georgian houses and an impressive town hall stood on the market square. Now, though, many of the shops in the main street had been closed and were boarded up, and even in the sunshine it had an air of desolation. The Browns lived in one of the big merchants’ houses close to the square. By the time Holly arrived it was late afternoon. The market was closing down, the stallholders folding tarpaulins and clearing tables. Cauliflower leaves and overripe tomatoes littered the cobbles. There was no sign that the press had tracked down Rebecca’s address, and the street outside the house was quiet.

The door was opened by a young man who must have been close to Patrick Randle in age and a little older than his own sister. ‘I’m George. Mum and Dad are out. Dad’s a GP and he’s still at the surgery. Mum’s just gone into town to visit a friend. Becky’s in here.’

It was a big family kitchen looking out over an untidy garden, and a young woman sat in the window-seat looking out. She was big-boned, tall and blonde. When she saw Holly she stood up. Her eyes were red from crying, but she managed a smile. ‘Sorry I’m in such a state. I can tell George thinks I’m being a bit of a drama-queen. It sounds like something out of a women’s mag, but Patrick really was the love of my life. I can’t believe he’s dead.’ A pause. ‘That someone killed him.’ She sat back down, but now she faced into the room.

‘Had you heard from him recently?’ Holly took a kitchen chair. The room looked as if it had been furnished by individual purchases from auctions. Lots of beautiful pieces, but nothing coordinated. Holly thought she wouldn’t have been able to stand the clash of colours and the clutter. It would bring on a migraine. She’d need to clear the place and start from the beginning.

‘There was a cryptic text a week ago.’ Becky pulled out her phone. ‘I’ve saved it, of course. It says:
Nearly fit to be your friend again. If you can forgive me.
’

‘What did you take that to mean?’

‘That whatever project had taken up the whole of his head for nearly a year was complete.’ Becky looked up at her. ‘That he was planning to come back to me.’

‘And you’d have had him back?’ Holly wouldn’t have considered returning to a failed relationship. It would never work and anyway she had too much pride.

‘Of course. I’ve told you he was the love of my life. But I couldn’t be with him as he was. Semi-detached. Obsessed with strange conspiracy theories.’

‘What sort of theories?’

Becky shrugged. ‘At first I thought it was about his work. Some scientists are haunted by the thought that another researcher will publish before them or steal their data. And Pat’s stuff was quite topical. There are still climate-change deniers, and his findings would have made their position seem even more ludicrous. He was always passionate about his work.’

It seemed unlikely to Holly that research into the habits of flying insects could provide a motive for murder, but she kept quiet.

Becky continued, ‘Then I thought it was something entirely different that was eating away at him. Something to do with his family. It seemed to start when his mother took up with another bloke, but the timing could have been coincidental. Or perhaps that triggered his desire to know more about his close relatives. Anyway all his spare time was taken up digging away in old newspaper reports and family-history sites online. And his attitude to his mother changed too. They’d always been very close, but suddenly he was cold when he spoke about her. It was as if visits home were just a drag. I hated the way he was with her. It wasn’t the Patrick I’d known and loved.’

‘He’d discovered something about Alicia? Something he disapproved of?’

‘I don’t know what he’d found out, because he wouldn’t talk to me about it. That was why I broke off with him. He seemed to be going faintly loopy, but I didn’t split up with him because I thought he was losing his mind. If I’m going to be a GP, I’ll have to deal with that and I knew he wasn’t really mad. And it wasn’t because I thought he was totally crazy to give up the chance of an immediate research post, when that was what he wanted since he was about twelve. I dumped him because he was being so bloody secretive. I only know that his family had anything to do with his obsession because I caught him digging into past copies of his local newspaper online. He seemed to be brooding over his father’s obituary. And even then he wouldn’t talk to me. He said he’d tell me the whole story when he knew it himself.’

‘What’s the name of the newspaper?’ Holly thought it was a long shot, but Vera Stanhope liked detail.

‘The
Hereford Times
.’

‘So you were the one to end the relationship?’ Holly was trying to make sense of this. The boss would love it. She enjoyed complication, stories of past feuds and tensions. In Holly’s experience, murder was usually much simpler.

Becky nodded. ‘And, you know, I think Patrick was almost pleased. Because that would give him a free hand to carry on with his research. Or whatever it was that was keeping him awake all night.’

‘Was anyone helping him? There was another victim. An older man called Martin Benton.’ Holly was already imagining taking all this information back to Vera, but it would be even better if she could find a connection between the two men.

‘The name doesn’t mean anything.’ Becky had turned back to face the window. Outside an old apple tree was in blossom, the flowers the colour of candy floss. ‘But. as I said, Patrick didn’t talk to me about it.’

‘Do you know if the Randle family had any connection with Northumberland? Did the county have a special meaning for him?’ Holly thought the man could have come north to continue his research. ‘We still don’t know why he chose to come to the area.’

‘Well, it wasn’t to see me.’ Becky stood up. ‘I thought I might phone him, you know. After I got that text from him. I was going to offer to meet up. I kept planning the words in my head.
We’re only forty miles apart. Let’s get together for a drink. In Newcastle maybe. That’s kind of halfway.
But in the end I decided against it. I thought I had to let him come back to me when he was ready. And that’s what’s really hurting. I could have seen him, changed things. He might even still be alive. It’s not just grief that’s kept me awake since I heard he’d died.’ She paused and looked directly at Holly. ‘I feel so bloody guilty.’

Vera sat in her office and brooded. Joe had come back from the prison with news of his conversation with Lizzie Redhead. He’d achieved precious little and she thought that she should have gone instead. Joe was at the time in his life when his judgement could be clouded by a bonny lass. The only useful information he could offer was that the woman from the prisoners’ aid charity had visited too. What was that about? Lizzie would have plenty of support on the outside and a home to go back to. Vera thought there were people who needed Shirley Hewarth’s help more than Lizzie Redhead.

A wasp was buzzing against the glass of the window. Vera opened it, letting in a sudden roar of traffic noise, and set the insect free. Wasn’t it too early in the year for wasps? She stood up, grabbed her bag and went out. In the car park she passed Holly and was tempted to stop and ask how she’d got on with Patrick’s girlfriend, but in the end she only waved and drove away. She felt she was being sucked back to the valley where the bodies had been discovered. As if it was a vacuum and there was no resistance.

The place was quiet. It was about the same time of day as when she’d first visited in response to the discovery of Patrick’s body. That had been two days ago, and they still hadn’t found the place where he’d been killed, though the search team had been working from dawn until almost dusk over the past two days. Costing a bloody fortune in overtime. They’d finished for the evening and Vera drove past the entrance to the Carswells’ house, the house that the locals called ‘the Hall’. Percy’s Mini was parked outside the bungalow, but here too everything was quiet. As she approached the front door there was the faint murmur of the television. She rang the bell and heard the sound of it inside. It took a while for anyone to answer and Vera thought that Susan must be out. Percy’s daughter was so curious that she’d have the door open immediately.

The old man looked a little dishevelled and she thought he must have fallen asleep in front of the TV.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ He stood aside to let her in.

‘Your Susan not around?’

‘She’s gone into Kimmerston to see some friends. Regular date, once a month.’

‘Ah well,’ Vera said. ‘It was you I wanted to see anyway.’

He took her into the living room and switched of the television. ‘Just rubbish anyway.’ Then he offered her tea.

‘You’re all right,’ Vera said. ‘I’m awash with the stuff. I’m not sure what I’m here for really. Only a chat, and to get out of the office.’ She sat in an armchair by the window and waited for him to take his place. ‘Do you have much to do with the folk up at Valley Farm?’

It took him a while to gather his thoughts. She thought he’d probably been to The Lamb for a couple of pints, then eaten a big supper. He’d have been fast asleep within minutes of his daughter leaving, the doorbell jolting him awake, leaving him a bit confused and dazed.

‘I see them around.’ She thought he
had
been to the pub, because he was dressed in proper trousers and a shirt, a grey cardigan, just as he had been when they’d first met. ‘They seem decent enough. I’ve known Sam Redhead all his life, of course. He grew up on the estate farm. He’s always been a quiet kind of chap.’

‘Did you ever meet their daughter?’

He shook his head. ‘I heard stories. It’s hard being a parent. You have to stick by them, even if you don’t always like the way they carry on.’

There was a moment of silence. ‘Does Susan clean for all of them?’

‘Aye. Mrs Carswell recommended her to the Prof. and his wife, and then the other houses took her on.’

‘Handy.’

He nodded. Vera waited. ‘She likes some of them better than others. The Prof. can be a bit particular. He doesn’t like her moving the stuff on his shelves, then complains because there’s a bit of dust left.’ Another pause. ‘He’s a proper writer. He’s had real books published. Not fiction. Historical stuff.’

‘What about Janet? His wife?’

‘Susan says she’s a bit of a doormat. It’s almost as if she’s scared of him.’ He looked up. ‘But you don’t want to take too much notice of what Susan says. She’s never been one to let the truth stand in the way of a good story.’ He gave an awkward little laugh. ‘I tell her she should be a writer herself.’

Vera smiled too. ‘You must remember the farmhouse up there when it was still working. The place where the Lucas family lives now.’

‘I used to work there. Contract mostly. And my dad before me. He was a moudy man.’

Vera grinned. ‘Eh, I haven’t heard that word for years! You’d get in the moudy man to clear your land of moles and pests.’

Percy nodded. ‘You wouldn’t recognize the house now. It’s all been tarted up. You’d never guess it was ever a working farm.’ A pause. ‘A chap called Heslop used to be the tenant farmer. Spent all his adult life there, struggling to make a living from the place. He only gave up when his wife couldn’t stand it any more and forced him to shift to the town. He died six months later. He’d be turning in his grave if he could see what they’d done to the place.’

‘You’ve been inside?’

‘Nigel Lucas had a party last Christmas and invited most of the village.’ He gave a wicked grin. ‘I think they were hoping the Carswells would show, but the major and his wife were down south visiting their daughter. So Nigel had to make do with the plebs.’

‘He’s a bit of a social climber, is he?’

‘Cash is no object,’ Percy said. ‘Susan says their kitchen cost more than a man’s wage for a year. But I don’t think that’s enough for Nigel. He’d like to get in with the county set. It’ll never happen, though. Round here you need to be born to it.’

‘How did he make all his money?’ Vera leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. She thought this was as happy as she got, digging around into the background of her suspects. Perhaps she was a bit of a historian too.

‘He had his own business. Burglar alarms. That sort of thing, I suppose. Sold it and made a fortune, apparently.’ Percy paused again. ‘Susan says he’s been accepted as a magistrate. She saw the letter when she was cleaning last week.’

Vera thought that figured. Nigel would see it as a first step to becoming established in the county. Besides, he’d love sitting on the bench and passing judgement on more lowly mortals. ‘What does Susan think of the wife? She seems a bonny thing. Younger than him?’

Percy considered. ‘She’s not that much younger. Not according to Susan. Well preserved.’