Ann Cleeves - The Moth Catcher

Annie shook her head. ‘Maybe the major wanted some work done in the house while they were away? Decorating or plumbing? So it wouldn’t disrupt the family too much when they came back.’

‘Aye, that makes sense.’ But Vera didn’t sound convinced and she changed tack. ‘I suppose all these buildings belonged to the big house at one time. When did the family sell up?’

‘Five years ago,’ Annie said. ‘About that time. After the financial crash things got difficult for the tenants. Some clung on longer than others. The major sold the barns to a developer, and he hung onto the place before doing the conversions. Maybe he had problems raising the capital. The Carswells kept the house where the Lucases live, and put that on the market at the same time as the barns went up for sale.’

‘So you bought your place from the builder, but the Lucases bought theirs straight from the family?’

‘That’s right.’ Annie thought there couldn’t be much wrong with the inspector’s memory because she wasn’t making any notes. Annie experienced the anger that lit a little fire in her brain every time she thought of their move to the valley.

‘Did you all arrive at the same time?’

‘More or less.’ Annie reached out and took another biscuit. She always ate when she was stressed. ‘Lorraine and Nigel camped out at The Lamb for a few months while their renovations were being done, but we were here within six months of each other.’

‘And you all get on.’ It wasn’t exactly a question.

‘We’ve got a lot in common,’ Annie said. ‘Similar sort of age and newly retired. We have different interests, of course. Janet’s into natural history and she’s the leading light in the Gilswick Walking Festival. Lorraine has her art. I volunteer a couple of days a week at the first school in the next village. Listen to the kids reading. We’re not in and out of each other’s houses all the time, but we socialize. Meet for drinks on a Friday night. It kind of brings a bit of structure to the week, now we’re not working.’ She bit her lip, realizing that she would never have dreamed up that idea for herself. It was probably something the Prof. had said and she was just repeating it like a parrot.

‘Good that you keep so busy. You wouldn’t think there was so much to do out here.’ Vera smiled. ‘Nice view, though.’

There was a moment of silence that lasted long enough to become awkward.

‘I have to ask what you were both doing yesterday,’ Vera said at last. She gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sure you understand. So where were you from early afternoon?’

‘Of course.’ Sam sounded very reasonable and Annie was proud of him. She knew he’d hate having this woman in their house as much as she did. ‘A tree came down at the end of the garden in the last storm and I was sawing it up. Logs for the wood-burner. We built a workshop at the back of the house when we first moved in and I was there all afternoon.’

‘And you?’ Vera turned to Annie, caught her in the process of nibbling another biscuit.

‘I was at the WI in the village.’ The crumbs made her throat feel very dry and it was hard for her to speak. ‘Janet O’Kane gave me a lift. There was a lecture on Neighbourhood Watch.’

‘Very appropriate.’

Annie had the feeling the detective was making fun of her, but when she looked, Vera’s face gave nothing away.

‘The meeting started at two-thirty,’ Annie said, ‘and once we’d had tea and caught up with our friends, it was probably five o’clock by the time we got back here.’

‘Did you pass anyone on the lane?’ Vera’s voice was easy, almost uninterested, so Annie guessed this was an important question. ‘Anyone walking down the valley? Any parked cars?’

Annie shrugged. ‘We were talking,’ she said. ‘Gossiping, I suppose. I don’t think that I’d have noticed.’

‘You might have noticed if there was a vehicle coming in the opposite direction.’ Vera’s tone was sharper now. ‘There are hardly any passing places, and you’d have to back up.’

‘I don’t think we passed anyone,’ Annie said. ‘But I wasn’t driving. You’re probably best asking Janet. It might have registered with her.’

The detective levered herself to her feet. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said. She paused with her hands still on the table. ‘What was the gossip about?’

For a moment Annie’s mind went blank. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘other WI members. Committee politics. You know what it’s like when you get a bunch of women together.’

‘I’m not sure that I do, pet. Most of my colleagues are men, and I don’t really do girlie chats.’ She flashed another smile and made for the door. Annie followed her and showed her out.

Back in the kitchen, Sam was standing by the window looking out. ‘She’s still there, sitting in the car.’

Annie joined him. Vera Stanhope was leaning back in the driver’s seat and seemed to have her eyes shut. For a moment Annie wondered if she was ill, if she’d had a heart attack or a stroke. The woman was so big she’d be a candidate for a stroke. Then she shifted and seemed to be writing on a scrap of paper. So perhaps she did take notes after all.

‘Come away,’ she said to Sam. ‘We don’t want her to think that we’re bothered.’

Holly sat in the big open-plan office and let the buzz of phone conversations and chat fade into the background. The sunshine lay on her desk in stripes, filtered by the blinds at the big windows. She needed to concentrate. To her left she was vaguely aware of Charlie talking to a taxi company about any bookings they’d taken to Gilswick the day before, but in her head she was back in the mortuary with Paul Keating and Billy Cartwright. They were working on the second body, stripping the clothes away, a strange kind of ritual. Vera had already lost patience and disappeared. The care that was taken in the removal of the garments was almost loving and the voice describing the process into a recorder was rhythmic and gentle. Like a prayer. Keating was a religious man, and not even Billy Cartwright managed to be too flippant in his company.

Holly had held the bag while they slipped the victim’s shoes inside. Keating was still speaking. ‘A bit of mud and what might be gravel in the tread. It would be worth letting Lorna Dawson from the Hutton work her magic.’ Professor Lorna Dawson, Keating’s favourite forensic soil scientist, should be able to provide information about where their victim had been just before he was killed. Then the suit had been removed. Marks & Spencer. It looked timeless, but it might be possible to track down when it was bought from its style, small differences in stitching. It gave no sense of the personality of the man, except that he was someone who wouldn’t have wanted to stand out. Holly could see why Vera called him the ‘grey man’. There was nothing in the pockets, not even a tissue or loose change.

It was when they cut away the underwear that the thought had flashed into her mind. Subversive, an epiphany. I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to live in a northern city with people who despise me, helping strange middle-aged men undress the dead. I’m smart and young enough to make a change. I can do anything I want. And following on from the first flash of revelation: I don’t want to end up old and single and married to the job, like Vera Stanhope. So now Holly was sitting at her desk trying to recapture that moment of excitement and decision, that instant of courage. Her phone rang. Joe Ashworth.

‘I’ve got a name for the grey man. Can you find out everything you can about Martin Benton?’ Then Joe gave her a list of facts. The man’s age and address. His last known employment at a charity in a small town in south-eastern Northumberland. ‘I’m just going to check out his home. See if I can track down any relatives.’