But Alicia didn’t answer. After a brief hesitation she walked further into the room and began to pick up items that had been thrown onto the floor. She hung a dressing gown on a hook on the back of the door, gathered up a pile of newspapers and dropped them into a large black plastic box already half-filled with rubbish. ‘It’s all such a mess. Patrick was always very keen on recycling, even as a young boy. It was a kind of obsession. He wasn’t always as good at bringing the paper downstairs to go into the special skip in the lane.’
‘If you want to leave me to it,’ Vera said, ‘I won’t be very long now. A quick peek and then I’ll join you downstairs. I’ll need to be going back again soon anyway.’
If Alicia was surprised by the detective’s change of tone, she didn’t show it. Henry put his arm around her and led her away. As soon as they’d gone Vera sat on the bed, put on a pair of latex gloves and pulled the recycling box towards her. Carefully she took out each piece of paper and laid it on the floor. Newspapers, junk mail, adverts for credit cards and holidays in the sun. Empty envelopes. Vera studied the postmark on each one. Nothing from north-east England.
Then she came across the letter. Printed on headed paper: Hope North-East and then the address in Bebington:
Dear Mr Randle,
Thank you for your letter and your request for further information. If you feel it would be helpful for us to meet, I’d be glad to see you in my office. Do feel free to phone me when you’re settled in Northumberland.
Yours sincerely
Shirley Hewarth
Vera leaned back on the bed and looked at the patterns caused by the shadows of the trees outside dancing on the ceiling. Another connection between Hewarth, Benton and Randle. But she still couldn’t see what information a posh lad from the South could want from a social worker living in a deprived part of the North-East. And why that information had led to the deaths of three people. She slipped the letter into an evidence bag and then into the briefcase her team had given her for her last significant birthday, in an attempt to improve her image and, by association, theirs.
Henry and Alicia were waiting for her in the room that looked out onto the garden. The French window was still open and there was a breeze. They came out to meet Vera in the hall – eager, Vera thought, to get rid of her, worried that if she moved further into the house they’d never get her to leave. Henry opened the front door, and the French window in the room looking out over the back garden slammed shut with a bang.
‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She hesitated for a moment on the doorstep. She wanted to be away too, but had the sense that the right question now would solve the entire case.
‘Goodbye, Inspector.’ Alicia seemed to have recovered her poise. She held out her hand.
Vera couldn’t think of the right question to ask and walked away to the car, suddenly desperate to be away from the quiet and elegant house.
Charlie was still asleep. She rapped on the window and he woke suddenly, obviously unaware for a moment exactly what was happening. She got into the passenger seat. ‘You’ve been asleep all afternoon, so you can drive back too.’
She didn’t close her eyes, though. There was too much to think about. Charlie saw that she was awake and started chatting. ‘Pretty round here, isn’t it? Would you ever consider a move south?’
‘Nah!’ She looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Not here. It’s too far from the sea.’ She paused for a moment and tried to work out why she was so horrified at the prospect of living in the middle of the country. ‘I never feel safe away from the edge.’
Chapter Thirty
Holly had been detailed to talk to Shirley Hewarth’s close relatives. The ex-husband and son had already been informed of her death, but Vera had wanted them spoken to in more detail. ‘I need you to bring back a clearer picture of Shirley. I can’t get any sense of her. What was she? Some sort of saint, spending her time with wasters and sinners? Or was she one of those women who feels the need to mother the world?’
So Holly found herself standing in a corridor in Northumbria University, outside one of the rehearsal rooms. Inside, a show seemed to be in the first stages of planning. Half a dozen young people were blocking moves to weird music Holly didn’t recognize. Jonathan was expecting her, and when he saw her looking through the glass door he took his leave of the group. They gathered round and hugged him in turn. He was a tall, gangling young man, dark like his mother. She could see the resemblance.
When he emerged into the corridor she held out a hand. ‘I’m so sorry about your mother.’ She never knew exactly what to say in these circumstances. Vera had banned Sorry for your loss. ‘We’re not characters from an American cop show,’ she’d yelled at one of the briefings, ‘and the bereaved haven’t just mislaid their car keys.’
Jonathan led her to a tiny room where three desks were crammed into a space hardly bigger than a cupboard. ‘My tutor said we could use her office. She doesn’t need it because it’s the weekend. She came in specially because of what happened to Mam.’ His voice was even, and Holly thought he was still in shock. He hadn’t yet accepted the reality of his mother’s death. He leaned against one of the desks and nodded that she should take the chair.
‘But you’re here, even though it’s a Saturday?’
‘We’re working towards our final performance and there’s a lot on.’ He paused. ‘Claire, my tutor, tried to send me home, but what good would it do me to be moping in my room? Dad’s going to pick me up in a bit. I’m going to stay with him and Mandy in Kimmerston for a few days.’ He looked into her face. A fierce stare. A challenge. ‘Do you know who killed my mother yet?’
Holly shook her head.
‘I’d assumed it must be one of her clients.’ He had the sort of face that gave everything away. Emotion was reflected in it like the shadows of moving clouds on a still lake. In a few seconds Holly saw disgust, anger and affection. ‘She loved working in that place, but when I saw some of the men she was dealing with… They’d have scared me.’
‘You went to the office in Bebington?’
‘A few times. Mum and I went to the theatre a lot, and once I’d learned to drive I’d pick her up to bring her into town.’
‘Can you think why she might have been in Gilswick yesterday?’
He gave a little laugh. ‘That area seems a bit upmarket for most of her clients, but I suppose it might have been work. She did lots of home visits.’
‘Your mother didn’t have friends who lived in the valley? She told the volunteer who worked with her in the office that she was taking time off yesterday afternoon, so the visit was nothing to do with the charity.’
He paused. ‘We were close,’ he said. ‘I lived in her flat before I got the place at Northumbria Uni and decided I needed a bit of independence, and I can’t remember her talking about anyone from Gilswick. But we didn’t live in each other’s pockets, even when I was still at school.’
‘Had there been anyone special after the divorce?’ Holly was feeling her way here. She still had no idea what she was looking for.
‘Probably.’ He grinned. ‘But she wasn’t going to tell me. We were close, but some areas were off-limits. I never chatted about my love life, either. But I don’t think she had a long-term relationship. She liked her independence too much.’
‘Was that what caused the break-up of the marriage? Your parents had been together for a long time.’
‘Perhaps. Though I didn’t ever see Dad cramping her style. She was always her own woman, even when they were married.’ He paused again. ‘Sometimes I think my mother had a kind of self-destruct button. She couldn’t quite accept that things were going well, and made life so difficult for my Dad that he left in the end. Found another woman. Someone less complicated.’ There was another silence. ‘It was almost as if she didn’t believe she had the right to be happy. I don’t blame my dad for leaving. They were both more relaxed after the separation.’