Ann Cleeves - The Moth Catcher

The garden smelled of wet soil. Dark clouds covered the sun. Annie tapped on Jan’s kitchen door and went straight in. The room was in shadow and for a moment Annie thought her neighbour wasn’t there. Then she saw her in the rocking chair where Jan always sat to read. Annie walked further into the room.

Jan, who was usually so controlled and sensible, was crying. Annie had wanted to confide in her, as she had many times before, to tell her about Lizzie’s homecoming, but Jan was wrapped up in her own grief. Her eyes were red and she held a handkerchief and was dabbing at them. Annie crouched beside her and took her hand. ‘What’s happened? Whatever’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ The woman stood up.

Annie felt as if she’d been pushed away physically. ‘But you’re upset. Can’t I help?’

‘No,’ Jan said. ‘Nobody can help.’

At the front of the house there was the sound of dogs barking, a key in the lock. ‘You must go now.’ Jan walked towards Annie, so that she was backing towards the kitchen door. Annie saw that the hand holding the handkerchief was trembling. As she turned and fled she thought that she knew nothing of her neighbours at all.

In her own kitchen Lizzie had just arrived. She’d taken off her soaking shoes and was laughing at the wet footprints that her stockinged feet had made on the tiled floor.

‘We were waiting for you before we opened the champagne,’ Sam said.

Annie was about to ask Lizzie where she’d been to get so wet, but thought better of it. It was none of her business.

Back in the police station Vera was reassessing the case. There were no notes on the desk. This wasn’t a formal meeting. Anyone looking in at her office would think she’d fallen asleep. She lay back in her chair and her feet were resting on a low stool covered with bilious-green velour. Nobody could remember how the stool had come into her office and usually it sat in a corner covered with a pile of files. The weight of her feet in their walkers’ sandals had caused a permanent dent in the cushion. Vera shut her eyes. She thought concentration was the skill most required of a good detective. Concentration and an innate nosiness.

She picked apart the elements of the inquiry in her mind to see if there was a line of investigation that had been missed. It was too easy to rush forward in a case, especially if new details came to light, and to forget incidental facts that had come to light earlier in the process. An investigation couldn’t be a route march. More a meander, and that had always been Vera’s preferred way of walking. After fifteen minutes she got to her feet, walked to the door and shouted out into the open-plan office where her detectives were working, ‘Joe. A minute!’

He came into the office, pushed aside the stool and took the chair on the opposite side of her desk.

‘Did anyone ever go and take a statement from Jason Crow?’

It took him a moment to place the name.

‘Jason Crow. Charlie’s Teflon man. Former employer, and probable lover, of Lizzie Redhead,’ Vera said.

‘Charlie went out to see him.’ Joe struggled to remember the details. ‘Crow said he hadn’t had any contact with Lizzie since he sacked her, and he’d never met Martin Benton.’

Vera looked up. ‘Did you see Lizzie by the way? In Annie Redhead’s car when we were on our way out of the valley.’

‘No.’

‘I thought you and Holly were half-asleep.’ She knew she sounded smug, but didn’t care.

‘Why didn’t you say at the time?’

Vera didn’t know how to answer that. Sometimes she liked to hoard facts. Secrets made her feel superior. It had become a habit. A bad habit. She’d bollock any of her team if they tried it.

‘I can’t see how Crow can be relevant,’ Joe said. ‘Lizzie was inside when all the murders happened. Jason might be a scumbag who got the Redheads’ business on the cheap, but he had no connection with Randle or Benton.’

‘Has he been inside? I know the name, and that he’s been in bother in the past. He could have come across Shirley Hewarth when she was a welfare officer in the nick. She wasn’t only at Sittingwell.’ Vera was thinking this probably wouldn’t lead anywhere, but there was an itch in her brain and she had to scratch. A bit like when the eczema on her leg was particularly bad.

‘I’ll have to check.’

‘Well, run along and do that then, bonny lad.’

He returned a few moments later. ‘Nothing since he was a juvenile, and that was just a bit of shoplifting. He got three months in a detention centre.’

She nodded. The detention centres had been another failed attempt at tackling youth crime. The short, sharp shock that just made the lads bitter. And much fitter, so they could run faster from the scene of their burglaries.

‘I might just go along and have a word with him all the same,’ she said. That itch again. Impossible to ignore, but probably nothing to worry about.

Crow lived on the outskirts of Kimmerston in one of the executive developments that Hector had railed about every time he saw them. Shoddy, pretentious blots on the landscapes . Sitting in her Land Rover outside the house, Vera could hear her father’s voice in her head and couldn’t help smiling. Hector had delighted in coming across a smart new estate so that he could vent his anger and display his prejudices.

She rang the bell. It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday and she thought Jason was unlikely to be there on his own. Despite any fling he might have had with Lizzie, there’d probably be a wife, older kids. This wasn’t the home of a single man. If Jason had been on his own he’d have gone for one of the flash new apartments on Newcastle’s Quayside. Rumour had it that he could afford to buy one in cash, if the fancy took him, and one of his companies probably owned half of them anyway.

The door was opened by a man. Middle-aged. Sandy-hair that might once have been ginger. Freckles. A naughty schoolboy, grown up.

‘Sorry, we don’t buy at the door.’ An unexpectedly pleasant voice. Vera was starting to see how he’d slid away from so many criminal charges. This wasn’t a thug or a bruiser. Crow would be charming and plausible, and he probably had friends in high places. She could imagine he’d be a good golfer.

‘And I’m not selling.’ Vera didn’t bother looking for her warrant card. She hated scrambling in her bag to find it. It looked unprofessional. ‘Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope.’

He raised his eyebrows. A gesture of amusement. They’ll let anyone join the service these days. ‘Sorry, Inspector. You’d better come in.’

Inside, the place was less flash than she’d imagined. Classier. A lot of wood. Uncluttered. Plain painted walls with some pieces of art that drew her in and made her stare. Photos of two daughters, one on her graduation throwing a mortar board in the air. A piano. ‘Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday.’

‘I was at my desk,’ he said. ‘I work mostly from home now. One of the perks of being boss. I don’t keep regular hours. Come into the office.’ He walked ahead of her and she realized that despite being middle-aged, he had the body of an athlete. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and his arms were muscular. Her glance followed his spine down to his legs and she realized why Lizzie had been attracted, despite the difference in their ages.

The office was at the back of the house and looked out into the garden. A long lawn with a pergola at the end. Closer to the house a trampoline that looked as if it was no longer used. Inside the office there was custom-built furniture and a rack of heavy-duty filing cabinets. Jason was old enough to prefer paper. He sat on the desk and nodded for her to take a seat so that she was looking up at him. ‘I hope this won’t take too long. I have to leave in ten minutes. I’m meeting a friend.’ An apologetic smile to take the aggression from the words.