The Moth Catcher (Vera Stanhope series Book 7) Read online

  ‘Was he still unhappy?’ Vera had finished her meal before the rest of them and sat back in her chair. She poured the last of the wine into Alicia’s glass. She wasn’t usually so moderate in her drinking, so Holly supposed Vera would be driving later. At least she wouldn’t have to taxi Vera home. ‘You’ll have been in touch with him since the two short contracts he did for the house-sitting agency. How did he seem?’

  ‘Better,’ Alicia said. ‘He was home for a month before he came north to Gilswick. He sulked around the house for a couple of weeks and spent hours in his room on his computer, but then he seemed to snap out of it. Become the old Patrick again. Though perhaps not quite. I asked him what the problem had been, but he didn’t want to talk to me.’

  ‘Did he catch moths when he was at home?’

  ‘Yes! He’s been doing that since he was about eight years old. We set up some traps in the orchard. One of the masters at his school was very keen, and a group of them became interested. I think Patrick’s the only one who’s maintained the passion.’ She gave a sad little smile. ‘I thought even when he was boy that he’d make a career of it, become an academic and continue his research.’

  ‘The second victim, an older man called Martin Benton, was passionate about moths too,’ Vera said. ‘It’s the only connection we can find between them. Do you recognize the name?’

  ‘No, but I wouldn’t do,’ Alicia said. ‘Patrick seemed mostly to communicate with other enthusiasts online. He had his own website and visited other people’s. There are separate lists for the different counties. It’s all rather esoteric. I could never get terribly interested, especially in the tiny moths – the micros – and they were Patrick’s favourites. Hard to identify, and a challenge.’

  ‘Martin Benton was a photographer.’ It was the first contribution Holly had made to the conversation. ‘His images are rather beautiful.’

  ‘I think Patrick was more interested in the science than the aesthetics,’ Alicia said. ‘He took pictures to help in identification. He’d put the moths in small jars in the fridge, because they’re still when they’re cold and easier to photograph. Then he let them go in the garden. He had no interest in collecting.’ She seemed lost for a moment in her memories. ‘But I suspect that he would have met Mr Benton, at least online. It’s a very small community.’ She looked up and her expression changed. Again the veneer of politeness shattered. ‘I need to know why somebody would have wanted my son dead. It’s the randomness of the brutality that makes it so hard to understand. I don’t even want vengeance. I just need to know what happened, and why.’ Her voice was scratchy, as if she had a throat infection or had been screaming.

  ‘And that’s what we want too.’ This time Vera did make contact. Alicia’s bony hand was lying on the table and Vera covered it with her big paw. ‘Can you let us have Patrick’s mobile number? We haven’t found his phone.’

  ‘Of course.’ The woman reeled off the number without having to check.

  Holly looked in her notebook. It was the number Joe had taken from Benton’s landline. She caught Vera’s eye and gave a little nod.

  Vera gave Alicia’s hand a little pat. ‘You’ll be tired with all that travelling. Holly will take you back now and we’ll catch up in the morning.’ She stood up and, obedient as children, both other woman followed.

  It was dark outside. Vera came with them to the door, but didn’t follow them out. Alicia Randle took her place in the passenger seat and sat in silence, gripping her handbag on her knee, until they’d almost reached her hotel.

  ‘I’m glad that I met your boss,’ she said. ‘I think she’s a good woman.’

  Holly thought for a moment. ‘She is.’ She paused. ‘And she’s a very good detective.’

  Holly sat in the car outside her flat, overtaken by the exhaustion that had hit her at Alnmouth station. She felt as if she could sleep here in the street and not wake up until morning. At last she roused herself and climbed out of the vehicle. She let herself into the flat and stooped to pick up the post. In the kitchen she switched on the kettle.

  The flat was new, in a recently built block on the site of a former fire station. Low-rise and discreet, its dark-red brick had been chosen to match the surrounding Edwardian houses in one of Newcastle’s more fashionable suburbs. Her apartment was at the back and looked over a cemetery. Most of the graves were old, covered with lichen and sheltered by mature trees, but occasionally there were funeral parties; elderly women dressed in black coats and hats shaped like mushrooms gathered around the newly dug hole in the ground, like crows around a roadkill rabbit.

  Holly made some camomile tea and moved into the living room. It was square and uncluttered and she loved it. It had taken years of saving to get the deposit for the mortgage, but usually when she arrived here after work she didn’t begrudge a penny. This was where she could be calm and free from the irritations of work. She liked the silence, the lack of traffic noise, the sharp edges of the newly plastered walls and the sharp folds of the ironed linen sheets. She’d moved to the North-East because she thought a challenging place would be good for her career, and since moving to the flat she hadn’t considered leaving. Until now.

  She seldom invited friends here. She preferred to meet in one of the restaurants and wine bars close to her home. Her friends were people she’d met at university or at the evening classes she took. She kept her distance from her colleagues. She enjoyed her own company. She set her tea on the glass table and went to close the blinds at the window. There was a moon now and the white light was shining on the marble headstones in the cemetery. It occurred to her that, at work and at home, she was surrounded by the dead.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vera stood outside the restaurant, waiting until Holly had driven away, and then she went back in. The birthday party was over and the main dining room was nearly empty. Vera wasn’t surprised. She thought the place was still trading on the reputation it had achieved under the old management. There’d been no imagination or flair to the food they’d eaten that evening. At the bar she ordered coffee and the bill and returned to the room where they’d sat for the meal. It was cold in there. She didn’t take off her coat, and felt as if she was sitting late at night in a station waiting room. The room was wood-panelled and dark.

  An older woman who’d been in charge in the restaurant carried in the drink, the bill and a card machine. She seemed to Vera very glamorous in the dim lighting, like a film star from a former era. Her big eyes were lined with black and she wore heavy mascara. Her white blouse had one fewer buttons fastened than was entirely decent. Something about her was familiar. Vera paid and, as the woman was walking away, remembered where she’d seen her. ‘Weren’t you here under the old regime?’

  The woman stopped and turned into the room.

  ‘Who wants to know?’ The voice went with the look. Husky. A badge pinned to her blouse had the name-tag Paula.

  What was it with the fashion for name-tags? It’s as if we’re all dogs, Vera thought. As if we can’t explain who we are, if we get lost. She smiled. ‘Detective Inspector Stanhope. Have you got time for a chat?’

  ‘Let me just check what’s going on in the restaurant. They’ve employed a bunch of kids. Cheap, but crap.’

  ‘Not like the old days?’

  Paula looked sharply at Vera, but didn’t answer. She returned a little later carrying a mug of tea.

  ‘I’ve told them to lay up for tomorrow and then let themselves out. I can lock up later.’ She nodded towards Vera’s coffee. ‘Do you want a real drink to go with that?’

  ‘Nah.’ Vera spoke quickly before she succumbed to temptation. ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘So are you just nosy,’ Paula took Alicia Randle’s seat at the table, ‘or do you have a reason for asking your questions?’

  Vera paused. ‘Well, pet, I’ve always been nosy . . .’

  ‘But maybe you have a reason for talking to me too?’ Paula tossed back her hair, but it had been lacquered into shape and hardly
moved.

  ‘Maybe.’ Another pause. ‘You did work for Annie and Sam, didn’t you? I’m sure that I’ve seen you in here.’

  ‘I worked front-of-house with Annie. As you said: the good old days.’ Paula set the mug on the table in front of her and stared into it. She might have been reading the tea leaves. ‘We were classy in those days. Great food. Nice atmosphere. The new owners just couldn’t carry that off. Headed downmarket. As if there aren’t enough cheap bars and restaurants in Kimmerston. There’s no way they can compete on price and they’ve got another place in Morpeth, so they’re hardly ever here. They’re just playing at it. I’d hand in my notice, but I suspect it’ll go under soon enough anyway. I might as well hang on, so I get paid my unemployment benefit as soon as I stop working. No point getting penalized for resigning.’ She drank tea. Her fingernails were as long as talons and painted scarlet.

  Vera wondered what it would be like to have nails like that. Fun, she thought. It would be fun! She imagined waltzing into the incident room all glammed up, fingernails and cleavage flashing, and pictured Joe’s face. She felt a moment of regret. She’d never gone in for anything theatrical, even when she was young. She’d never been into anything fun at all. And it was all too late now. She became aware that Paula was staring at her.

  ‘Do you know why Sam and Annie sold up?’ Paula hesitated for a moment. ‘It was an important decision. Something they had to sort out for themselves. They weren’t going to discuss that with the hired help, were they?’

  ‘But you might have guessed what was going on.’ There was another hesitation, and Vera thought the woman was preparing to confide in her, but in the end her response was bland, almost meaningless. ‘They said they wanted to enjoy some quality time together before they got old.’ Which was what they’d told Vera.

  ‘Tell me about them.’

  Paula stared at Vera across the table. ‘What is all this about?’

  ‘There was a double-murder in the valley beyond Gilswick. Naturally we’re interested in everyone who lives there.’

  ‘You must be joking!’ The waitress began to laugh. It started as a bewildered snigger, then became hysterical until she was choking. Vera couldn’t tell if she found the idea of her former employers as murderers genuinely amusing or if the laughter was a reaction to stress. At last Paula dabbed her eyes with a napkin and started speaking. ‘Annie and Sam are the gentlest people I’ve ever met. They adore each other and think the best of everyone. There is no way that either of them could be a killer.’

  ‘So there’s no problem in telling me a bit more about them then, is there?’ Vera leaned back in her chair. ‘How long did they run the restaurant here?’

  Paula considered. ‘I remember the tenth anniversary,’ she said. ‘A glorious night. That wasn’t long before they sold up.’

  ‘What did they do before they took this place on?’

  ‘Sam was a farmer. His dad was a tenant of the Carswell estate, before the major sold off most of their holdings. It’s tough scraping a living from the hills. You know that. They kept going by diversifying and ran the farm as a B&B, and later they set up a shop and tea room – Sam’s baby. That was where the idea of this restaurant came from. The menu in the tea room was all about local food, simply cooked. When his father died, Sam knew he’d rather be a cook than a farmer. He gave up the tenancy and set up this place.’

  ‘What’s Annie’s background?’ Vera loved this part of the investigation: the excuse to satisfy her curiosity, to dig her way into the suspects’ lives.

  ‘She and Sam were childhood sweethearts. I think she grew up on the coast. Blyth perhaps? I’m not quite sure how they met, but it was while they were both at school. Then they separated and she went away to university. When she came back to Northumberland she was engaged to be married to someone else, but the week before the wedding Sam tracked her down. He turned up at her parents’ home one day and persuaded her that she was making the worst mistake of her life. He said that he was her one-and-only true love.’

  ‘And she went for that?’ Vera wondered if she’d be taken in by a gesture so flash and corny. Probably. But she was middle-aged and overweight, and occasionally desperate not to be left alone.

  ‘Trust me.’ Paula smiled. ‘Showy romance really isn’t Sam’s style. Annie must have known he’d only have spoken up if he meant every word.’

  ‘Have they got any kids?’

  ‘A daughter.’ Paula snapped her scarlet lips shut.

  Vera looked up sharply. ‘Problems?’

  ‘All kids have problems of one sort or another, don’t they?’ Vera didn’t answer and Paula continued, ‘And they certainly become problems for their parents. Mine were a nightmare as soon as they hit thirteen and didn’t become civilized until they were old enough to buy me a drink.’ She looked up at Vera. ‘Have you got any?’

  Vera shook her head.

  There was another silence until Paula continued. ‘Elizabeth, their daughter’s called. Known to everyone as Lizzie. Wild from the beginning. I think she was chatting up middle-aged men from her cradle.’

  ‘Is she still getting tangled up with the wrong sort of bloke?’ Vera tried to work out where this was leading, but was caught up in the story now and didn’t care if it was relevant to the case. Annie had told her that their daughter was working away, and Vera hadn’t bothered checking.

  ‘When Lizzie was still at school she had a relationship with one of the teachers. Got him sacked.’

  ‘Not her fault that!’ Vera shot back. ‘Especially if she was underage. The only guilty party was the man.’

  ‘I’d have thought just the same.’ Paula paused for a moment to finish her tea, though it must have been cold by now. ‘Until I met her. Lizzie has no boundaries. No limits. She goes for what she wants without any worry about the consequences, especially if the consequences are for other people.’ There was another hesitation. Outside in the street a couple of drunks were shouting to each other. ‘Sam and Annie were always bailing her out. I used to dread it when there was a phone call at work and it was from Lizzie. Sam would drop everything in the kitchen and rush out to rescue her from whatever scrape she’d made for herself. He’d bring her back here – they had a flat over the restaurant for a while – and she’d be pissed or stoned. Or just mad. Laughing like a drain, or in floods of tears.’

  ‘Did they try to get her some help?’

  Paula shrugged. ‘I don’t think they wanted to admit that there was anything seriously wrong. Not then. Annie made excuses for her. She was always saying that Lizzie had finally turned a corner and they’d arrange for a new college course for her, or pay off someone she’d had a go at.’ Paula fished in her bag and pulled out a cigarette, lit it and took a drag.

  ‘This is a public place, and that’s illegal.’ But Vera trotted out the words with no force. Everyone had the right to their own vices.

  ‘You know what?’ Paula said. ‘I don’t fucking care.’

  Outside in the street the drunks had started yelling some football chant. The end of the season and at least their team wasn’t going down.

  ‘Is that why Sam and Annie sold the restaurant?’ It was a big leap in the logic, but Vera thought Paula’s antipathy to Elizabeth was personal. She hated the girl, because she hated working for the new owners. ‘Was it something to do with Lizzie?’

  A silence. ‘I don’t know. Like I said, they didn’t confide in me. Why would they? I’d only worked my guts out for them for about twelve years.’ Now the bitterness was obvious. ‘I only asked Annie to be my fucking bridesmaid.’

  ‘But you might have guessed?’ Vera’s voice was as gentle as a mother’s. ‘You strike me as a woman who understands things. Who’d know what was going on in that family. You and Annie were close as sisters.’

  ‘They found Lizzie a job,’ Paula said. ‘Pulled some strings. I don’t know how. Or perhaps Lizzie arranged it herself. Fancied the boss and made promises she was only too happy to keep. Rumour has it he fancied her
rotten anyway, so perhaps the attraction worked both ways.’

  ‘And the name of the boss?’ Vera’s voice was as quiet as a whisper. Paula was in full flow and she didn’t want that to stop.

  ‘Jason Crow.’ Paula made it sound like a swear word. ‘Builder. Developer. Local wide-boy.’

  The name was familiar. Vera had come across it through work. Crow had been charged with threatening behaviour, and then the case had been miraculously dropped when the victim had decided not to press charges. She said nothing, though, and Paula carried on talking: ‘Lizzie worked in the office. She did the filing. Sent out bills. Looked glamorous when the customers turned up. Kept the boss happy in her spare time. But it seemed she wasn’t as stupid as we all thought. She found some way of fiddling the payroll, siphoning a bit off every month into her own account. It took Jason six months to find out what was going on. It had made him look ridiculous and that was unforgivable. He was going to make an example of her.’

  ‘He threatened to go to the police?’

  Paula looked up and gave a slow, wide smile. ‘Oh, that would only have been the start.’

  ‘Go on, Paula. Make the connection for me.’ The same encouraging mother’s voice.

  ‘The new owner of this place is Jason’s little brother. He already had a wine bar in Morpeth and he wanted to expand. Go figure.’ Paula stubbed out her cigarette on the side of her mug.

  ‘So Sam and Annie sold the place to Jason, to stop him having a go at their daughter.’

  Paula shrugged. ‘I don’t know how much they got for it, but I bet it was nowhere near the market price. And it didn’t do any good, did it? That’s the fucking irony. The lovely Lizzie managed to get into quite enough bother, all by herself. And now she’s safe from Jason and all the Crows.’