Charlie stuck up his hand. ‘Where does Randle fit in then? Are we saying that the intended targets were Benton and Hewarth all along, and Randle got in the way? That the moth-trapping connection was just a coincidence?’
‘The moth-trapping brought them together.’ It was a new young officer, cocky. ‘That’s why Benton was out at Gilswick. Like you said, Randle might just have got in the way. Bloody unlucky.’
Joe raised both hands to catch their attention. ‘We think this might be a bit more complicated than Randle being collateral damage. Last night Holly found a connection between him and Shirley Hewarth. Tell them, Hol.’
He listened while Holly explained about the envelope and the postmark. There was silence as they tried to take in the implication of the link.
‘Of course there are other connections between the victims.’ Joe had been leaning against his desk and now he pushed himself to his feet. ‘Shirley Hewarth was involved with the Redhead family, whose daughter Elizabeth will be released from prison this weekend. Hewarth’s body was found very close to the Redhead home. Also close to the big house where Randle was acting as house-sitter, so we have geographical proximity on all sorts of levels.’ He felt suddenly overwhelmed. There was too much information and too many complications. Vera might enjoy the challenge of a labyrinthine investigation, but he preferred things to be straightforward
Holly stood up. ‘Any idea how Shirley got to the valley at Gilswick?’
‘We found her car, tucked into a farm gateway close to where Randle’s body was found off the track. No idea whether she drove it there or if that was the work of the killer.’ Joe thought they had very few ideas about what might have happened the night before.
Holly was still on her feet. ‘Do we have a next of kin yet? When I looked round the flat I had the impression there was a man in Shirley’s life. A son?’
That gave Joe the chance to leave the speculation behind and to pass on the concrete details that had been gathered overnight. He stood in front of the whiteboard and pointed to a photograph of Shirley.
‘Shirley Hewarth, aged fifty-eight. She was divorced from Jack Hewarth ten years ago. He was a journo with The Journal in Newcastle until he was offered redundancy several years ago. He hasn’t worked since, but he’s older than her and now lives off his pension. There’s one grown-up son, Jonathan, now twenty-one. When the couple first divorced, Shirley stayed in the marital home, but when Jonathan went off to uni they sold it, split the profits and Shirley’s been living in the flat in Cullercoats ever since. At around the same time she left the probation service and started work for Hope North-East.’
‘Have we tracked down the ex and the son?’
‘Jack Hewarth still lives in Kimmerston with a new partner, who has her own business, that classy dress shop on Front Street. He seems to go in for younger women. Jonathan is a third-year student at Northumbria University. Doing drama and music. Living in a student flat in Heaton. They’ve both been informed of Shirley’s death.’ Joe paused for breath. ‘Obviously we’ll need to talk to them at some point today, because they could give useful background to the victim, but I don’t see either of them as potential suspects.’
The door banged open and Vera sailed in straight from the post-mortem, scarf trailing behind her like a pennant, bags in each hand.
‘We don’t talk about her as “the victim”,’ Vera said. On her high horse. ‘Her name’s Ms Hewarth. Or Mrs Hewarth. Or Shirley. She’s entitled to a bit of respect.’ A pause. ‘She was killed by stabbing, like Benton. Is that significant? Not killed where she was found, so we’re looking for yet another murder scene. Hol says there’s no sign of violence in the flat where she lived, but we’ve got the CSIs checking that now. There’s no weapon yet, but Paul Keating did go so far as to say it looked like another kitchen knife. How far have you got, Joe? Have you told them about the envelope? Which would indicate that all three of the deceased were connected. Find the connection and we’ve got the killer.’
Easy.
Joe drove to the Hope North-East office in Bebington. The visit had been at his suggestion, when Vera had planned the action for the day. Shirley’s name hadn’t been given to the media and he hoped word hadn’t got out yet. He wanted to tell the volunteers himself that their boss was dead. He wanted to see their reaction. ‘They run some sessions on a Saturday, so the volunteers might be around.’
He was surprised to find the office open; he’d assumed that Shirley would be the only key-holder and had expected to find people waiting for her on the pavement. Upstairs the skinny volunteer described by Holly was filling the kettle. She heard his footsteps on the stairs and sang out, ‘Just making a brew.’ She obviously hadn’t heard about Shirley’s death.
When she turned and saw him, she was thrown. Suddenly anxious about having to deal with a stranger. ‘Shirley’s not in yet. She shouldn’t be long. I thought you were her.’
‘I’m afraid she won’t be coming in.’ Joe was speaking to her as if she were a child. He’d grown up with women like her. Nervy and fragile, surviving on anti-depressants, afraid of the world.
‘Why? What’s happened?’ She was trembling. He thought anything out of the ordinary would scare her and that she’d known he was police from the moment she saw him.
‘I think you should sit down.’
She was used to doing what she was told and took the seat at her desk.
He pulled up another chair, so that he was on her level. ‘There was an incident last night. I’m afraid Shirley’s dead.’
‘No!’ It came out as a wail of grief. One thing was certain. This woman had had nothing to do with Hewarth’s murder. He’d seen people less upset by the death of a close relative or partner.
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’ Sharon was ripping a tissue into shreds. The pieces formed a small mound on the desk in front of her and she gathered them up in her palm, trying to roll them together like a snowball. ‘She asked me to lock up, because she had a meeting.’
‘You weren’t in when I came to chat to Shirley.’
‘No,’ she looked up at him. ‘Our bairn had a hospital appointment. He’s got terrible asthma. Usually his nana minds him, but I wanted to take him for the tests myself. I’m only a volunteer, so there’s never any problem about taking the time off. I came in later.’ Her voice tailed off as if she realized that, in the scheme of things, none of this was important.
‘What time did you get back?’
‘About three-thirty.’
‘And when did Shirley go out?’
‘Not long after. It was as if she’d been waiting for me to come in so that she could get off.’ Sharon looked up at him. ‘What happened to her? An accident in her car?’
Joe shook his head. ‘We’re treating her death as suspicious.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Where was she going?’
‘I don’t know.’