‘You must hear a lot from all the people who come through this door.’ Shirley didn’t reply and Joe continued, ‘They all knew Martin Benton. Have you heard any rumours? Anything about who might have wanted him dead?’
Joe thought they’d all been assuming Randle had been the target for the murder and that Benton had just got in the way. But perhaps it had happened the other way round. If Benton had been followed from Kimmerston, he could have been the intended victim.
Shirley shook her head. ‘Martin didn’t have any enemies. He was a gentle creature.’
‘But he worked here. He’d have heard a lot too. All those meetings with folk baring their souls. Perhaps he heard more than was good for him.’
‘He never took part in any of the meetings.’ For the first time the woman seemed uncomfortable. ‘Martin worked in the office, making sure our IT was working properly. His only face-to-face contact with clients was running workshops in basic computing, and we used a room in the library for those.’
‘He might have had access to confidential information about your clients, though?’
‘I suppose he might have done, but he wasn’t interested in people. Only in the technology.’ She gave a little smile. ‘And his moths. I don’t suppose he was killed because of those.’
‘Where were you on Tuesday evening?’
Her mood suddenly changed and she became girlish, flirtatious again. ‘Am I a suspect? How exciting!’
‘I have to ask.’
‘Of course you do. We all do our jobs. We all follow orders.’ The tone had changed once more and become surprisingly bitter. ‘I was here until five o’clock. On my own. Sharon, our main volunteer, leaves just before three most days to pick up her little girl from school and we don’t have any groups on Tuesday afternoons. Then I went home. I live alone. So no alibi, Sergeant. Nobody to vouch for me.’
Joe stood up. He still felt unsettled because he couldn’t quite place her, socially or emotionally. He guessed she must be divorced. This was no confirmed spinster like Vera Stanhope. ‘Where do you live?’
‘On the coast. Cullercoats.’
That didn’t help to pin her down much. Culler-coats had grand homes looking out over the bay, but there were also rows of small terraced houses and Tyneside flats.
They were halfway down the stairs when he turned back to her. ‘Why do you do this? Why do you work here?’
‘Because I’m nosy,’ she said immediately. ‘I’m interested in people. I’d get bored alone in the house all day.’ Joe thought that was exactly the answer Vera would have given. ‘And then there’s guilt.’ The words seemed to come out before she’d thought about them properly, because he could tell she regretted them as soon as they were spoken. She gave a sad smile. ‘Not everyone is as lucky as me.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Annie got back to Valley Farm in time for lunch. Sam had been baking bread. She could smell the yeast as soon as she let herself into the house. She thought that meant he was troubled. Her memories of the bad times with Lizzie were linked with this smell and with the sight of Sam kneading dough in the restaurant kitchen. He thumped and stretched the mixture on the marble block as if he were committing torture, until the tension went from his shoulders and he began to relax.
‘I wasn’t sure when you’d be home. I thought, once you started gassing to the lasses, you could be out all day.’ There was flour on his forehead.
She took a tea towel and wiped it off. ‘I didn’t meet the girls.’
‘No?’
She’d been married to him for nearly thirty years, but she still couldn’t always tell what he was thinking. He put a long oven glove on one hand and lifted the bread out of the oven. Wholemeal. He preferred white himself, but always cooked her favourites. He turned the loaf upside down and knocked the bottom, seemed satisfied and slid it onto a tray to cool.
‘A woman phoned earlier. She works for a charity. Hope North-East. She’s visited Lizzie a couple of times in prison. She wanted to talk. I didn’t like the idea of her coming to the house.’
He closed the oven door and switched it off. ‘You didn’t say.’ No judgement. A bald statement of fact.
‘I’m sorry.’ Annie paused, took a breath. ‘We need to talk about Lizzie. She’s out this weekend.’ She felt bruised and exhilarated. As if she’d smashed a fist through the glass wall that had separated them for months.
He had his back to her, so she couldn’t see his face. He switched on the kettle. ‘I expect you could do with a coffee.’
‘Sam.’ Annie could tell her voice was desperate now. ‘We will let her come here, won’t we?’
He swung round with more speed than she’d have thought possible from him. ‘Of course she’ll come here. Where else would she go?’
Then Annie thought that everything would be all right. The two of them would stick together over this. It wouldn’t break them apart. They continued the conversation as they ate, and she felt closer to her husband than she had in years. Perhaps even since that time when he’d arrived at her parents’ house the week before she was supposed to marry another man. Her parents had both been teachers. They’d lived in the smart new estate on the edge of Bebington, close to their roots, but a little away from the pit-town. They’d had aspirations for her. She’d been away to university and that was where she’d met Michael, her fiancé. Her parents had liked Michael, who was an aspiring lawyer from Surrey. They had even forgiven the fact that his father was a Tory councillor. When Sam had turned up at their tidy modern house, still smelling faintly of the farm, her parents had let him in. He was an old friend of their daughter, after all.
Sam had taken her for a walk along the beach. It was a gusty, showery day and the wind had blown her skirt and her hair, and the waves had been tumbling onto the sand. Later she’d sat in the little front room in her parents’ house; she’d cried as she told them the wedding was off, but she’d felt a tremendous exhilaration too. Her parents had tried to understand. ‘Are you sure, pet? I mean Sam? He’s a nice enough chap, but don’t you think he’s a bit boring?’
Now, sitting across the kitchen table from him, she thought he didn’t look very different from the farmer’s son who’d persuaded her that nobody else would love her as much as he did.
‘You know I’d do anything to make our Lizzie happy.’ There was the same expression as when he’d walked with her along that beach. Stubborn and kind of soppy at the same time. ‘She’s been nothing but trouble for years, but I still love her to bits.’
‘Why wouldn’t you go and visit her in prison?’
He gave a little shake of his head. ‘I couldn’t bear it. She’s not a girl who was meant to be trapped. It’d be like seeing a wild bird in a cage.’
‘This social worker says she’s changed.’
‘Oh, aye?’ His expression said that just because he loved his daughter, he hadn’t lost his senses.
‘Lizzie’s talking about going to college.’
‘Well, she’s talked about that before.’
‘The woman who works for the charity. Her name’s Shirley. She’s going to keep an eye on things, support Lizzie once she’s come out of prison.’ Annie reached out and touched his hand.
‘Aye, well, Lizzie’s had social workers before too.’
‘Young things, always rushing to be somewhere else. Thinking more about their careers than the folk they’re supposed to be helping.’ Annie was dismissive. ‘When you meet Shirley you’ll see she’s different. She seems to know what she’s talking about.’
‘When will I get to see her then?’ He frowned. He didn’t like meeting new people. Even their neighbours in Valley Farm made him feel a bit awkward until he’d had a couple of beers. Then he could be the life and soul.
‘She’s coming here on Monday. She said that’d give us a day to get settled with Lizzie, a bit of time to get to know each other again.’