Ann Cleeves: The Moth Catcher

Vera stopped again and listened. Voices. Indistinct and too far away for her to make out the speakers. At this distance they were more like whispers. Lovers’ caresses. At first she wondered if the sound was just caused by the wind in the branches.

She didn’t move. She wished she knew where Joe was. She didn’t want him stumbling along the road, all heavy boots and shouting. This was a delicate situation. She thought again that Lizzie was like an unexploded bomb. A sudden movement or a loud noise might set her off. Vera took her phone from her pocket and switched it to silent. Then she tapped out a text to Joe: Lizzie in Gilswick Hall close to the moth traps. Approach carefully. No fuss. No noise. She hit ‘Send’ and the message disappeared silently into the ether. Vera listened again, but the conversation under the trees seemed to have stopped.

She was a heavy woman, but years of acting as Hector’s lookout had made her quiet on her feet. The damp undergrowth cushioned her tread. Still the violet lights of the traps seemed to dance in the distance. She walked, but she didn’t seem to come any closer. Then suddenly she could see them in a clearing ahead of her and the voices had started again. Intense. Two figures were standing just beyond the traps. They were of a similar height. Both dressed in waterproofs and boots. Dark shadows in the fading light and impossible to identify. Vera slid behind the wide trunk of a beech and listened.

‘It’s up to you.’ A woman’s voice. Apparently reasonable. Persuasive and clear. Loud enough so that Vera could hear. ‘Your choice. You can afford it. Who need ever know?’

Silence.

Vera felt the rough bark of the tree against her back even through her coat. She didn’t dare move to see the figures more clearly. She didn’t need to look.

‘You don’t understand.’ The shadow was bulky, bull-headed, thick-necked.

‘Just give me the money and I’ll be away. You’ll never see me again.’ Her voice was still reasonable, but Vera could tell that the speaker was losing patience now. There was a scuffle and a little scream. At that moment the security lights at the big house went on. The timer must have been triggered and the whole grounds were flooded with a white light.

As if lit by a spotlight and like a character in a Victorian melodrama, Nigel Lucas stood at the centre of the clearing. He had one arm round Lizzie Redhead’s throat and the other was raised to strike. He had a Stanley knife in his hand; Vera thought he must have grabbed it from Lizzie just before the lights came on. Everything seemed to happen very slowly. Vera came out from behind the tree, but she was too far away to stop the attack and Lucas seemed so angry that he appeared not to hear her yelling. It was like a nightmare; she was running, but seemed rooted to the ground. Tied down. Impotent. She knew she wouldn’t get there in time. She imagined the conversation with Sam and Annie: I’m really sorry. There was nothing we could do. The parents’ pale faces and their staring reproach.

Then, still as if in slow motion, another figure appeared. A dark shadow silhouetted against the bright security light. It took Vera a moment to recognize Holly. Lucas released Lizzie and lunged at the newcomer; the thin blade of the knife reflected the light and then disappeared, buried into Holly’s clothing. Or into her body. Someone was screaming, and it took Vera a moment to realize the sound came from her own voice. Panic pushed her on. She’d almost reached the group, when Holly kicked out with her feet. Lucas fell to the ground, his face in the sodden leaves, and Holly was sitting on top of him, twisting the knife from his grip. Lizzie Redhead started running away through the trees.

‘Stop her!’ Holly’s face was white in the unnatural light. Vera looked for blood, but saw none.

‘Never mind Lizzie bloody Redhead. Joe’ll get her. Did he hit you?’

Holly seemed not to hear. Am I really here? Vera thought. Or am I some sort of ghost? Invisible and completely powerless. Can they all manage fine without me?

She helped Holly pull Lucas to his feet.

‘I’m fine,’ Holly said. ‘A scratch.’

Lucas looked up at Vera. Even with his face smeared with mud, he managed to turn on the automatic smile. There was still the need to be believed. ‘Inspector, please don’t be misled. Did you see what happened? These young women assaulted me.’

‘Is that what happened when you were a prison officer?’ Vera was still panting after the run, still shaking with anxiety, and she couldn’t stop herself. ‘All those lads you abused in the detention centre. Had they assaulted you too?’

She was aware of footsteps to her right and saw Joe Ashworth making his way from the drive. He had grabbed Lizzie by the arm and was pulling her after him.

‘Read him his rights and get back up, then take him to the station, Holly.’ Vera felt suddenly very tired. ‘Joe, get Lizzie to her parents. They’re in Gilswick. If not there, then back at the house. I’m going back to Valley Farm to tell this man’s wife that her husband’s a triple-murderer.’ She thought it was the least she could do.

Vera found Lorraine in her studio at the back of the house. She was working at an easel and an anglepoise lamp shone straight onto the painting. Lorraine looked up as Vera walked in. ‘Is it over?’

‘Did you know?’ Vera sat on a wooden rocking chair with a patchwork cushion.

‘I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I think I guessed. Then I told myself I was being paranoid and tried to forget about it. What reason could Nigel have for killing two strangers?’ She paused. ‘I wondered if the cancer had spread to my brain, eating away at it, making me imagine things. If I was going quietly mad. It’s been a horrible week.’

‘You’re one of the sanest people I know. When did you suspect?’

‘Friday afternoon, just before the party. Not that Nige was the killer then, but that something was wrong. He’d been in town shopping, stocking up on drinks and snacks.’

‘He showed us the receipt,’ Vera said.

‘He seemed to be away a long time. And when he came back he changed and put all his clothes in the washing machine. He’s pretty domesticated, but that seemed odd.’ She turned away from the painting and wiped her brush on an oily rag. ‘And he seemed very wired and hyper, insisting on dragging me down to The Lamb for a drink.’

Vera didn’t speak and Lorraine continued.

‘Also I knew there was something in his past, something that he wanted to forget. He refused to tell me about it. Once there was the start of a news item, and he switched off the television before I could see what it was about. “Why can’t they leave all that alone, after all this time?” he said. “What good does it do now?” He wasn’t himself for days.’

‘He’d worked as a senior prison officer,’ Vera said. ‘Before he set up his own security company. One reason why the business did so well. He had contacts. People trusted him, just at a time when a number of the prison functions were being put out to private tender.’

There was a noise in the next-door garden. Janet O’Kane locking the hens in for the night.

‘I knew he’d worked in the prison service,’ Lorraine said. ‘He never liked to talk about it. I thought it was a kind of snobbishness. He wanted people to think of him as a successful businessman.’

‘He worked in a detention centre for young offenders in Staffordshire. Shirley Hewarth was a recently qualified probation officer based in the same institution. It took us a while to make the connection. Perhaps we didn’t really know what we were looking for and we got distracted by other things.’