Ann Cleeves - The Moth Catcher

‘We’ll go together then, shall we?’ Vera got to her feet. Her head spun for a moment. Too little sleep and not enough good food. If she didn’t get some fruit and veg inside her, she’d end up with scurvy. Her young doctor would have a fit if she could see what the team consumed in the course of an investigation.

Alicia led her through a small back door, not the French window. Henry had been watching their progress and was waiting for them in the hall. He stooped slightly towards Alicia, but didn’t touch her. They stood awkwardly for a moment. ‘All done? That’s good. I expect you want to be on your way, Inspector Stanhope. You’ve got a long trip north. Or shall I organize more tea?’

‘The Inspector wants to look at Patrick’s room.’ Alicia reached out and took the man’s hand, clung to him.

‘Well, I can see the sense in that.’ Henry spoke easily. ‘No need for you to go up though, Allie. Not if you don’t feel up to it. I can show the Inspector the way.’

There was a silence broken by the heavy ticking of an old clock in the hall. Vera waited with interest for Alicia’s response.

‘No, I’ll go too.’

‘Why don’t you come with us, Henry?’ Vera thought the last thing she needed was for Alicia to go all faint and wobbly on her, if they were on their own up there. It seemed oddly informal to be calling the man by his first name and she realized she’d never heard his surname. ‘You can give Alicia some moral support.’

So they trooped together up the main stairs and into a huge room at the front of the house. Vera stood at the door and was swept again by a tide of exhaustion. This was a waste of time. The room was full of stuff: bookshelves covered the long wall, there were fitted cupboards in the alcoves on each side of a chimney breast, boxes of paper, a pile of prints of moths and butterflies stacked against a wooden chest and all the debris of leftover adolescence – posters of rock bands, a cricket bat, photos of young sportsmen grinning into the camera. The late-afternoon sun streamed through the long sash windows and was reflected from a mirror on the wall, small glittering objects like pencil sharpeners and paperclips scattered over Patrick’s desk, a microscope lens. A trained search team would take weeks to look through it properly.

‘We spoke to Patrick’s girlfriend.’ Vera realized suddenly that she’d forgotten to ask about this, and that it was important. ‘She told us that he’d been engrossed by a project, but that it was almost over. Do you know anything about that?’

‘No, I didn’t even know that Patrick and Rebecca were still in touch. I told you, he hasn’t been very communicative with me recently. I asked him what I’d done to upset him, but he didn’t give any sort of coherent answer.’ Alicia stood just inside the door as if she was reluctant to engage with the memories of the room. ‘I suppose we’ll have to clear all this out.’ And then, with a little cry, ‘I can’t bear it.’

‘No rush,’ Henry said. ‘All in your own time. If you can’t face it now, we can leave the inspector to it. I’m sure we’re both ready for a stiff drink.’

Vera supposed that he’d dealt with crises before, imagined his reassuring plummy voice notifying relatives of sudden deaths, arrests, accidents overseas.

But Alicia didn’t answer. After a brief hesitation she walked further into the room and began to pick up items that had been thrown onto the floor. She hung a dressing gown on a hook on the back of the door, gathered up a pile of newspapers and dropped them into a large black plastic box already half-filled with rubbish. ‘It’s all such a mess. Patrick was always very keen on recycling, even as a young boy. It was a kind of obsession. He wasn’t always as good at bringing the paper downstairs to go into the special skip in the lane.’

‘If you want to leave me to it,’ Vera said, ‘I won’t be very long now. A quick peek and then I’ll join you downstairs. I’ll need to be going back again soon anyway.’

If Alicia was surprised by the detective’s change of tone, she didn’t show it. Henry put his arm around her and led her away. As soon as they’d gone Vera sat on the bed, put on a pair of latex gloves and pulled the recycling box towards her. Carefully she took out each piece of paper and laid it on the floor. Newspapers, junk mail, adverts for credit cards and holidays in the sun. Empty envelopes. Vera studied the postmark on each one. Nothing from north-east England.

Then she came across the letter. Printed on headed paper: Hope North-East and then the address in Bebington:

Dear Mr Randle,

Thank you for your letter and your request for further information. If you feel it would be helpful for us to meet, I’d be glad to see you in my office. Do feel free to phone me when you’re settled in Northumberland.

Yours sincerely

Shirley Hewarth

Vera leaned back on the bed and looked at the patterns caused by the shadows of the trees outside dancing on the ceiling. Another connection between Hewarth, Benton and Randle. But she still couldn’t see what information a posh lad from the South could want from a social worker living in a deprived part of the North-East. And why that information had led to the deaths of three people. She slipped the letter into an evidence bag and then into the briefcase her team had given her for her last significant birthday, in an attempt to improve her image and, by association, theirs.

Henry and Alicia were waiting for her in the room that looked out onto the garden. The French window was still open and there was a breeze. They came out to meet Vera in the hall – eager, Vera thought, to get rid of her, worried that if she moved further into the house they’d never get her to leave. Henry opened the front door, and the French window in the room looking out over the back garden slammed shut with a bang.

‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She hesitated for a moment on the doorstep. She wanted to be away too, but had the sense that the right question now would solve the entire case.

‘Goodbye, Inspector.’ Alicia seemed to have recovered her poise. She held out her hand.

Vera couldn’t think of the right question to ask and walked away to the car, suddenly desperate to be away from the quiet and elegant house.

Charlie was still asleep. She rapped on the window and he woke suddenly, obviously unaware for a moment exactly what was happening. She got into the passenger seat. ‘You’ve been asleep all afternoon, so you can drive back too.’

She didn’t close her eyes, though. There was too much to think about. Charlie saw that she was awake and started chatting. ‘Pretty round here, isn’t it? Would you ever consider a move south?’

‘Nah!’ She looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Not here. It’s too far from the sea.’ She paused for a moment and tried to work out why she was so horrified at the prospect of living in the middle of the country. ‘I never feel safe away from the edge.’

Holly had been detailed to talk to Shirley Hewarth’s close relatives. The ex-husband and son had already been informed of her death, but Vera had wanted them spoken to in more detail. ‘I need you to bring back a clearer picture of Shirley. I can’t get any sense of her. What was she? Some sort of saint, spending her time with wasters and sinners? Or was she one of those women who feels the need to mother the world?’

So Holly found herself standing in a corridor in Northumbria University, outside one of the rehearsal rooms. Inside, a show seemed to be in the first stages of planning. Half a dozen young people were blocking moves to weird music Holly didn’t recognize. Jonathan was expecting her, and when he saw her looking through the glass door he took his leave of the group. They gathered round and hugged him in turn. He was a tall, gangling young man, dark like his mother. She could see the resemblance.