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

‘Mother, still living in Herefordshire. The locals have informed her of her son’s death. Randle was an only child, and his father died when he was a teenager.’

  Vera smiled at him, the closest she’d get to telling him he’d done a good job. Then she lay back in her chair and raised her eyes to the ceiling, which was nicotine-brown and hadn’t been decorated since her father, Hector, had died. Smoking was one of the few vices in which she didn’t indulge. ‘Of course it’s important that we find out if Randle asked to come to Northumberland. We need to find out if he had a specific reason for being in Gilswick, or if this was random.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘Could it have been a burglary gone wrong?’ It had crossed Joe’s mind that some of those paintings downstairs in the big house might be valuable, and there could have been bits of jewellery in the master bedroom. His Sal made him watch Antiques Roadshow on a Sunday night and he was always astounded at the value put on stuff he wouldn’t give house-room to.

  ‘Well, that might work, if Randle’s was the body in the house and we didn’t have a second corpse.’ This time Vera made him feel like the stupid kid at the back of the class. ‘Besides, I didn’t get the feel that anything had been taken, and there was no sign of a break-in.’

  Holly shot Joe one of her superior looks.

  There was a moment’s pause.

  ‘Do we know anything about the older man?’ Vera asked at last. ‘The man in the flat. Anything from the second CSI team, Joe? Holly didn’t find anything in the pockets that she could get to easily.’

  ‘Still no ID,’ Joe said. ‘They’ve taken fingerprints, but there’s no match yet. And when I left the station there’d been no missing-person report that could have been him.’ He was starting to think of the older victim as the ‘grey man’ now too. Grey and almost invisible.

  ‘And no information on how he actually got to the house?’ Absent-mindedly Vera reached out for another beer.

  ‘No, but we haven’t canvassed the neighbours yet.’ By the time they’d got a team together, most of the villagers would be in bed.

  ‘That’s a priority for the morning then. Let’s talk to Percy Douglas and his daughter again. Then apparently there are some fancy barn conversions at the end of the lane. The victim wouldn’t have passed them to get to the big house, but the residents might have been out and about this afternoon.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been a murder followed by suicide?’ Holly was tentative, worried about being shouted down.

  ‘You mean Randle killed the older man, then himself?’ Vera didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, but she sounded sceptical. ‘Have we got a cause of death for Randle yet, Joe? Dr Keating was at that locus first.’

  ‘He says they’ll do both autopsies first thing tomorrow; after working two scenes he needs a break and doesn’t want to start tonight. He’ll bring in a colleague to help, but he’ll supervise both. He’ll move on to the grey man once they’ve completed the forensic capture on Randle.’ Joe paused for a moment. ‘He said he’d go for a seven o’clock start. He hasn’t got much on just now, so the place will be quiet.’

  ‘Did he tell you how Randle died?’ Vera sounded impatient. Joe thought that, unlike the pathologist, she wouldn’t need a break. If she had her way, they’d be in the mortuary now, working through the night. ‘Keating must have some idea! Was he stabbed, like the older man? I couldn’t tell from the top of the bank. If he was stabbed, it must have been in the back, because there was no disturbance to the front of the clothes. And it looked to me as if he was placed under the cow parsley. I can’t see how he could have done that himself.’

  ‘A double-killing then?’ Joe stretched. He supposed this would mean big-style overtime. Sal liked the extra money, but not the fact that he wouldn’t see the bairns awake until all this was over.

  ‘Though Hol found a knife in the pond at the big house.’ Vera ignored him and continued her train of thought. She was like a tank when she got going. Relentless. Nothing would stop her. ‘If we assume that it was the murder weapon and that Randle was stabbed too, it makes sense that the young man was killed somewhere near the house. Otherwise the killer would have had to go back to the house to chuck the knife in the pool. Joe, will you organize a proper search of the garden tomorrow. The big cheeses won’t make a fuss about resources, not with two deaths and the press going ape.’

  Joe could tell her mind was sparking and fizzing and she was still considering the possibilities. He thought she would probably be up all night, working through multiple scenarios. He hoped Keating had switched off his phone; otherwise he’d get no rest, either. She’d pick at every thread until one led to real information.

  ‘But the only blood in the flat or the rest of the house was under the older man, so we definitely need the search team in for the garden. I can’t see that Randle was killed in the flat.’ Vera looked up at him. ‘Did you get through to the Carswells, the home owners?’

  ‘Yes, I spoke to Mrs Carswell, just before I left the station.’

  ‘On the landline number I gave you? Not a mobile?’

  He smiled, understanding the way her mind was working. ‘They’re definitely in Australia. There’s no way they could be our murderers.’

  ‘And? Had they met Randle?’

  ‘No, but they had chatted to him on the phone.’ Joe looked at his notes again. ‘Mrs Carswell said he was well spoken and very pleasant. They were reassured that he’d be perfect for what they needed.’

  ‘How did she take the news that we found a body in her attic?’ Vera still had the energy of a hyperactive three-year-old.

  How do you think she took it? A complete stranger was stabbed in her home. Joe kept his voice even. No point winding her up even more. ‘I described the dead man, but she said it didn’t sound like any of her acquaintances. She would ask her husband and get back to me if they had any thoughts.’

  ‘Are they planning to come home immediately? That’d make life complicated. It’s useful to have the big house empty.’

  ‘Nah. Their son’s girlfriend’s expecting a baby. The first grandchild. They’ll stay on until after the birth.’

  Vera nodded.

  Joe shut his notebook and then remembered something else. ‘She said not to ask Susan to look after the dogs. Apparently the woman hates them, but she’s the best cleaner they’ve ever had and they don’t want to lose her. Mrs Carswell said that there’s a family in one of the barn conversions – Professor and Mrs O’Kane – who’d take the dogs in. I’ve spoken to the team on the ground and asked them to sort it out.’

  Joe stood up and made it clear he was planning to leave. His toddler was going through a nocturnal phase and, though she didn’t work outside the home, Sal made it quite clear that he should take his turn. He was shattered already.

  Vera finished her beer and set her glass on the table in front of her. ‘So we have three priorities for tomorrow.’ She held up a fat thumb and two fingers of her right hand in order, as if she was counting. ‘We need to find out where Randle was killed, and at least get a name for the older man. And talk to the neighbours in the valley.’

  Holly seemed relieved that Joe was making a move and started packing her iPad into her bag. He knew she thought this sort of discussion was a waste of time and preferred structured briefings in the police station. He sometimes wondered why she wanted to rush home. As far as he knew, there was nobody waiting for her. He’d never been invited into her flat in Gosforth, but she hadn’t mentioned a partner. Her sexuality was the subject of curiosity at the station, but maybe that was only because she’d made it clear that she didn’t welcome advances from male colleagues.

  Vera got to her feet to see them out. The empty pizza boxes were on the floor and she picked up a scrap of crust from one of them and stuck it in her mouth. ‘Are you okay to do the post-mortems with me, Hol?’

  ‘Yes, sure.’

  Joe was glad not to have the early start, but felt abandoned. Vera usually liked him with her in t
he mortuary. She’d once said that Holly was like a puppy needing a run. ‘All that energy. I find it distracting. And it doesn’t feel respectful in the presence of a corpse.’

  They stood for a moment with the door open. Below them a string of lights marked the village that represented Vera’s nearest civilization. They’d nearly reached the cars when Vera shouted after them, ‘And for Christ’s sake, Joe, get a decent night’s sleep. You’re no good to me looking like a washed-out dishcloth.’

  He didn’t like to say that it would be his turn with his youngest child, if she decided to wake in the night. Vera might be all for gender equality at work, but she thought Sal’s sole purpose in life was to prepare him for work with her.

  In the end the toddler slept well until nearly six. Then Joe made coffee and switched on the television. He’d wake Sal at seven and still get to the police station before Vera and Holly returned from the post-mortem. He took his coffee into the lounge. The bairn was on the carpet playing with a stack of blocks. Happy as Larry, so Joe switched from CBeebies to the breakfast news to see if there was anything on the Gilswick double-murder. Nothing on the national news, and only a brief piece on the local. It would have been too late the night before for the press office to get out a media release. He carried on watching anyway. There was a feature about immigration, a reporter in the street asking passers-by what they thought about border controls. Usually the journalist got the answers he was hoping for: bluster and bigotry. As Joe looked, the reporter approached a man walking down the pavement towards him. The man just shook his head and hurried on, ignoring the fact that the reporter was calling after him, ‘Surely you must have an opinion, sir.’

  Joe grabbed the remote, pressed a button to pause the piece and then played it again. No doubt; the bloke who’d refused to answer the journalist’s question was their second victim, the middle-aged man in the grey suit. He thought Holly would be a Radio 4 person. She might not even own a television, and anyway she’d be in the hospital, helping Paul Keating with the forensic capture of Patrick Randle’s body. Holly wouldn’t be the person to deliver news to the boss that might lead them to their older victim’s identity. The thought cheered him up and carried him through the changing of a stinking nappy.

  Chapter Seven

  Vera stood in the mortuary with Holly, Billy Cartwright and Paul Keating. Randle was lying on the stainless-steel table and, as his clothes were cut away, Billy was bagging them. Holly was taking notes. Vera was trying to contain her impatience. She understood that Keating was meticulous and hated being forced into speculation, but still she found this waiting for a cause of death impossible. She would have preferred to be with the search team in the valley at Gilswick, looking for the place where Randle had died. Or in Percy’s bungalow, talking to him about life in the tiny community, asking if he’d seen her grey man the day before.

  But she tried to focus. Patrick Randle’s clothes would tell them something about the man, and Holly knew all about clothes. ‘What do you think, Hol? Can we tell the sort of chap he was by what he’s wearing?’

  The DC looked up from her notebook. She always seemed surprised when Vera asked her opinion. ‘I’m not sure. Waxed jacket. Barbour. That wouldn’t be cheap. It’s a good-quality shirt, but something that an older man might wear in the country. Is that a stain on the back?’ Billy Cartwright shifted the clear plastic bag so that they could all see. ‘It’s certainly well worn and rubbed at the neck. On top of that, a jumper. Round-necked. Hand-knitted.’

  ‘Is it?’ Vera hadn’t noticed and she was surprised. When she’d been growing up sometimes bairns wore hand-made clothes, but it wasn’t so common for adults. These days she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a man in a hand-knitted top.

  Holly continued. ‘Jeans. Levis. Underwear from M&S. Shoes. Very good-quality, leather soles as well as leather uppers. Well polished and well looked after.’

  ‘So what does that tell us, Hol? A typical student, do we think? Doesn’t sound like it to me.’

  ‘It depends which university he went to. Maybe he’d fit into one of the smarter ones.’ She sounded unsure.

  ‘Oxford or Cambridge, do you think? Joe didn’t tell us where he did his PhD.’ Vera was feeling out of her depth. When she was young, all students had looked the same – as if they’d bought their clothes from the church jumble sale. ‘We’ll get Joe to find out.’ Her frustration spilled over. ‘Any chance of getting to the cause of death, Doctor? Sometime this month would be good.’

  Keating looked up from his work. ‘Patience, Inspector.’ Friendly enough. ‘The younger man’s death was caused by a blunt-force trauma blow to the head. I think one blow, because of the lack of spatter on the clothes. There’s just that small stain on the shirt.’

  ‘And you couldn’t tell me this last night? You must have been able to tell he’d not been stabbed, as soon as you moved the body.’

  Keating didn’t answer immediately. ‘I thought you deserved your beauty sleep, Inspector.’

  His assistant muffled a giggle. There was an awkward silence. Vera continued, ‘But there’s no stain on the jumper.’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘So he was just wearing a shirt when he was attacked?’ She was running through various scenarios to explain the fact. Why would a killer add extra clothes to the victim’s body after death?

  ‘I think that’s a logical assumption.’

  ‘Why was one victim stabbed and the other bludgeoned to death?’ Vera’s mind was racing. ‘If they were both killed at the same time, wouldn’t the same weapon be used?’ She turned to the pathologist. ‘I’m assuming they both were killed at the same time.’

  Keating shrugged. ‘You should know by now that we can’t pin down the time of death with that kind of pinpoint accuracy.’

  ‘But Randle might have been killed in the flat, with the middle-aged man?’

  ‘That’s entirely possible.’ This time Billy Cartwright joined in. ‘The search team only made a start yesterday. We’re stretched. Of course we’ll be checking for blood stains, anything that places Randle there after his death.’

  But I didn’t see anything. There was no blood, except under the older man.

  ‘Then why move him!’ She realized the words had come out as a cry. ‘Why dress him up in a jumper and a jacket and risk being seen carrying him into the ditch?’

  ‘I do bodies,’ Keating said, ‘not mind-reading. I’m afraid I can’t answer that for you.’

  ‘And I’m not saying that Randle was killed in the flat in the big house.’ Billy Cartwright seemed to be enjoying her discomfort. ‘Not yet. Just that it is a possibility.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about the knife Hol found in the pond?’ Vera thought this was just too complicated. She’d assumed a double-murder, both men killed with the same knife.

  ‘We’re pretty sure it’s one of a set from the kitchen in the flat. You noticed yourself that one was missing from the block on the counter. We can tell you later if it matches the wounds on the older man.’

  ‘So the killer didn’t come prepared,’ Vera said. ‘Not into the flat, at least.’ Possibilities flashed into her mind, but nothing made sense.

  Later they were in the briefing room at Kimmerston. Vera had left Holly to be present at the second postmortem. There were already photos on the whiteboard: close-ups of Patrick Randle and of the chap Vera called the ‘grey man’. Pictures of the ditch and its vegetation, the outside of the manor house and inside Randle’s flat. On the desks where the team was sitting a pile of bacon sandwiches, half-eaten, and torn sachets of brown sauce. Bodies never put Vera off her food.

  ‘We know nothing about this man.’ Pointing to the second victim. ‘Nobody’s got in touch overnight to report him missing. I’ve just checked. And precious little about this one.’ Jabbing a ruler at Randle. ‘Joe, have we got a bit more from the agency?’

  ‘It seems Randle did request a placement in Northumberland when he first joined up with them, so they
put him in for the Carswell job and gave him two short-term contracts while he was waiting to start it.’

  ‘Do we know why he was interested in coming to Northumberland?’ It seemed to Vera that this made the killing less likely to be random, or the work of some delusional mad person.

  ‘He told the agency he was interested in natural history and this was an area he hadn’t explored yet.’

  ‘I suppose that could be true. If he had an ecology degree.’ But Vera thought the request lay at the heart of the case. They needed to know exactly what had brought Randle north.

  ‘I’ve spoken to the mother.’ Joe’s voice was sombre. He was a great family man, a bit too soft-hearted for a policeman, in Vera’s opinion; but then she thought Holly was heartless, so perhaps she was never pleased.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’s older than I was expecting, in her late sixties. She said Patrick came when she’d given up having another child. He read directly from his notes. “But not an afterthought – a consolation.”’

  ‘I thought he was an only son.’ Charlie looked up from his sandwich.

  Vera gave a slow clap of her hands. ‘So you’re awake after all. And listening! I was wondering.’

  ‘There was another boy,’ Joe said. ‘Simon. He’d have been nineteen years older than Patrick. Apparently he committed suicide. When he was a student.’

  ‘Oh,’ Vera was moved almost to tears. ‘The poor woman.’

  ‘Patrick did his first degree in York and his Masters and his PhD in Exeter.’

  ‘Not one of the posh ones then?’

  ‘Posh enough,’ Joe said. ‘Apparently. I asked Sal. She’s already been reading up on unis. We’ve got high hopes for our Jess.’ There was a moment of silence and Joe looked up at Vera. ‘The mother would like to come up to view the body.’

  ‘Oh,’ Vera said again. She thought that would be a job for Joe. He was good at all the touchy-feely stuff and he’d know how to handle it. Though maybe Holly needed the practice. ‘Well, I suppose that saves us having to make the trek down to chat to her.’