Chapter Twenty-Three
Vera was late for the morning briefing and she’d already set it back by an hour. Joe knew she got criticized by her bosses for being too hands-on. They thought she should learn to delegate and have more faith in her team. She’d once read out a comment she’d been given at her appraisaclass="underline" You shouldn’t believe that you’re indispensable. Your role is to pass on your skills to others. ‘Well,’ she’d said. ‘If they can persuade Holly not to look down her nose at folk who live in dirty houses, they’re better senior officers than I am.’ He’d laughed at the time, but now he thought the bosses had a point. Vera was the worst kind of control freak.
She burst in just as everyone was starting to get impatient. Holly was muttering that she’d go back to her desk, because she wanted to complete the detailed timeline for the suspects’ movements on the day of the murders. She’d just stood up when Vera swept in, full of energy, unstoppable as a steamroller. ‘Are you leaving us, Hol? That’s a shame, because we’ve got a locus for the Randle lad’s murder and we could do with your input.’
Muttered laughter, while Vera beamed. Holly sat down and the briefing started. Vera didn’t even bother to get her usual mug of coffee. This morning, it seemed, she didn’t need caffeine to get her going.
‘So finally we know where Randle was killed.’ Vera was standing in front of them, but she couldn’t keep still. She moved up and down the narrow space between the chairs and the whiteboard. If she hadn’t been so heavy, Joe would have said she was dancing. The spirit of Muhammad Ali before a title fight was there, even if her weight stopped her prancing on her toes. ‘In the veggie garden at the side of the house.’ Joe listened to the details: the blood on the cold-frame, the crushed salad plants and the moth traps that had been set, but not emptied.
‘So.’ Vera threw out the single word like a challenge. ‘Let’s think what could have happened here. Let’s run through some possibilities.’ But, instead of pausing to give them all a chance to think, to throw in their ideas, she carried on talking. She was so wired that she found silence impossible. ‘We know that Benton and Randle met; we think they had a cup of tea in the flat. Then at some point they must have separated. Why? How did Randle end up in the garden, leaving Benton in the flat? And when did they set up those bloody moth traps? It might be useful to know if they’d been running since Patrick arrived. They’re right in the heart of the wood and you can’t see them from the road, but you might see the bulbs at night.’
Joe was thinking that all these were small domestic details and there might not be a coherent rationale to link them. During his daily life he sometimes did things that were out of order, not inexplicable exactly, but triggered by a sudden impulse. He stuck up his hand.
‘Maybe Randle just fancied some salad leaves to go with whatever he was cooking for his tea.’
He thought Vera might yell at him for being flippant, but she stopped moving and, when she did shout, it was to the whole team. ‘What did Randle have in his fridge? Anyone?’
Holly had the notes. ‘Two big pieces of spinach quiche, bought from the deli in Kimmerston; some Northumberland goats’ cheese and a tub of supermarket potato salad. Some English asparagus. Then the usual bits and pieces. Milk, eggs, half a packet of bacon, a jar of mayonnaise and three bottles of lager. A loaf of wholemeal bread and half a packet of unsalted butter.’ She paused. ‘There was a bowl of tomatoes on the kitchen windowsill.’
Vera nodded. ‘There are tomatoes already ripening in the greenhouse at the Hall. He’ll have picked those. The Carswells would have given him permission. They’re not the kind of folk who’d like to see food go to waste.’ She looked up at them. ‘Two large slices of quiche. What does that tell us?’
‘That he was expecting Benton to stay for supper?’ Holly again, though by now the whole group had reached the same conclusion.
‘And that means?’
‘That he could have gone into the garden to cut salad leaves to go with the meal.’
‘So let’s give Joe a big clap, everyone.’ There were a few muffled cheers and catcalls before Vera continued, ‘That changes the whole dynamic of the relationship between the two victims, doesn’t it? We thought Benton was there for a business meeting or an interview. That was the impression he gave his chum from the charity where he’d been volunteering. But that doesn’t quite fit with our scenario. This is more informal. You wouldn’t pop out in the middle of a business meeting to get a few leaves to make a salad. They must have been friends.’
Joe stuck up his hand again. ‘So why the suit? If it was a social occasion, especially if you were going to be grubbing around looking at moths in the wood, you wouldn’t wear a suit.’
A moment of silence. Someone shouted in the neighbouring office and a door slammed. Holly coughed. ‘Could it have been a confidence thing? I mean, this might have been the first time they’d met in person, but we know they’d spoken on the phone. Randle would have an educated accent, wouldn’t he? Like his mother. We know that Benton was socially awkward. Perhaps the suit was to give him confidence. He’d been invited to dinner and he thought that was the right thing to wear. Otherwise he only had the tracksuit bottoms and polo shirts in his wardrobe at Laurel Avenue.’
Joe thought this was speculation. He expected a blast of Vera’s famous sarcasm, but none came. Instead she stopped moving and leaned against a desk. He had a sudden image of an enormous sea-lion stranded on a rock.
‘So what was the meeting for? Benton told the woman at the dole office, and his mate Frank, that it was business. Randle had set the moth traps at some point. Had he found an unusual species? Were they preparing to write some sort of academic paper about it? Did Randle need Benton’s photographic skills? Help me out here, somebody. What am I missing? What was so important that they needed to meet, instead of making do with a phone call or email?’
Another long silence. Vera launched herself from her rock. ‘Okay, let’s leave the “why?” for now and move on. The two men arrive at the big house from Gilswick. They chat, Randle goes into the garden. He goes to pick some salad. The murderer hits him hard on the back of the head to kill him.’ She looked out at the room. ‘Pete MacBride from the search team thinks he might have been killed with a spade. Plenty of those in the toolshed. All being checked. All bright and sparkly, though, so if one of them was the murder weapon the killer took the time to clean it. Then he went into the flat and stabbed Benton with a kitchen knife. Is that the way we think it happened?’
‘No!’ Joe decided that was impossible. ‘The killer must have gone to the flat first, expecting to find Randle there. We don’t know what he intended at that point. He certainly wasn’t anticipating finding a stranger in the place. Benton was killed because he could identify the intruder. Then the murderer went outside to search for Randle. Surely it must have happened that way.’
‘So Benton was collateral damage?’ Vera closed her eyes for a moment. ‘He was never an intended victim.’
She stood, as still as some bloated and ancient Buddha, and then snapped back to life. ‘Actions for the day,’ she said. ‘Joe, I want you to visit Shirley Hewarth, the social worker at Hope charity. What was so urgent that she had to go out to Sittingwell to visit Lizzie Redhead? Hope is for people who don’t have support from statutory bodies or from the wider community. I’ve checked their mission statement.’ She rolled her eyes and they chuckled. They all knew what Vera thought of mission statements. ‘Lizzie has affluent parents, a home to go back to and more support than she wants. So why is Hewarth so involved?’ A pause for breath. ‘Hol, I need a bit of action on all the communications we’re dealing with here. Phones, laptops and PCs. There must be something that’ll give us a hint to the relationship between the two victims. We’ve got two murder scenes now and plenty to go on.’ A brief pause. ‘And where’s Patrick Randle’s laptop? I asked his mother, and he never travelled without it. If we find that, we’re close to finding the killer.’