‘Don’t worry, Inspector. I won’t be around when this comes to court. The CPS need never know.’
‘Aye, well, that’s what I thought.’ Vera shut her eyes for a moment and then she drained her glass. ‘Are you okay on your own?’
‘When will I be able to see Nigel?’
‘Not tonight. Tomorrow maybe.’
Lorraine looked up. ‘He did all this for me, you know. He’d have toughed out the press and the lawyers, if he was still on his own. He was trying to protect me from the publicity. It wasn’t just his own reputation that mattered to him.’
Vera nodded. She thought that was probably true. Nigel believed in himself as a good husband and protector.
‘I might go and see Janet,’ Lorraine said. ‘She’s a good friend. I can’t face Annie and Sam.’
‘I’ll walk round with you.’ Vera followed Lorraine down the stairs and out into the darkness. The sky was clear in patches and there was a faint moon and a smattering of stars. She stood by the Land Rover while Lorraine tapped at her neighbour’s door. She watched the women embrace, backlit by the house, and then she climbed into the vehicle and drove away from the valley. It occurred to her as she passed the big house that she’d have nobody to comfort her in a tragedy. She thought it was probably simpler that way, and besides she’d never been able to cope with sympathy.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Holly found herself in Vera’s house in the hills for the second time during the investigation. Outside it was completely dark and the lights in the village below were hidden by the drizzle. Vera had conjured a meal out of nothing. Lamb stew and home-made bread. ‘Joanna seems to know when I’m busy. She’s a good neighbour and she looks after me.’ Holly had given up red meat years ago, but the smell was so delicious that she took a bowl. Vera poked at the fire. They sat with their food on their knees, the hunks of bread on a plate on the floor between them.
‘I never liked Lucas.’ Vera had dribbled lamb fat down the front of her jersey. She sounded smug. ‘Never trusted him.’
‘He wasn’t a bad man, though. Not at the start.’ Holly thought Lucas hadn’t ever been a villain like Jason Crow. After all, Lucas hadn’t been the person to decide that young scrotes needed a brutal regime to sort them out. That had been dreamed up by the politicians, and journalists weren’t threatening the Home Secretary of the time with exposure and legal action. The newspapers had gone for the easy targets, the men and women doing their jobs. ‘Not until Patrick Randle started hassling him.’
‘Just following orders, do you think?’ Vera kept her voice amused, but her eyes were sharp. ‘Not his responsibility if a few lads were so screwed up by their time inside that they went on to commit suicide, become alcoholic or violent themselves?’
‘Not unless he crossed the line.’ Holly supposed she should let this go, but she was tired of Vera’s bullying.
‘Ah, that line…’ Vera leaned back in her chair with her eyes half-closed. ‘If only we knew exactly where it was.’
There was a moment of silence so that Holly wondered if Vera had fallen asleep. The big woman roused herself to set her bowl on a table behind her and continued talking. ‘In terms of this investigation, it doesn’t matter what really happened all those years ago. What matters is that Patrick Randle believed that Nigel Lucas had caused his brother’s suicide and wanted the world to know what had gone on in the detention centre. And Lucas made up his mind to stop him going public.’ She looked at Holly. ‘That was premeditated murder – the worst crime there is. So do I personally think Nigel Lucas was capable of beating up the lads in his care? Tormenting them until he drove them mad? Yes, I do.’
Joe shifted uncomfortably. He’d never been much good at confrontation. ‘Talk us through the details,’ he said. ‘Tell us what happened.’
Vera beamed at him. She knew he was distracting them. ‘Aye, why not? If we go all philosophical you’ll be here all night, and I need my beauty sleep. Though maybe we should get Holly to tell it. She got to the answer before the rest of us.’ The comment was barbed, so Holly squirmed in her seat and expected a lecture on following direct orders. But Vera sat up straight in her chair and began her lecture. Holly found herself impressed by the crisp delivery and by Vera’s sharp mind.
‘Patrick came across details of his brother’s suicide, and the fact that Simon had been inside. That caused a breakdown of communication with his mother, Alicia – Patrick resented the fact that she’d kept the whole thing from him. He tracked down Shirley Hewarth and Nigel Lucas. Shirley had been Simon’s welfare officer, and Nigel the prison officer in charge of Simon’s wing. Shirley had obviously been distressed by her ex-client’s suicide and must have discussed the case at home. If you remember, Jack Hewarth thought Randle’s name was familiar.’
Vera paused for a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing.
‘Patrick wrote to Shirley and she was sympathetic. She understood that he wanted to gather more information about his brother’s experience inside. But she must have been scared about being implicated in covering up the abuse.’
‘How did Martin Benton get involved?’ Holly had always wondered about the grey ex-teacher.
‘Patrick had been in communication with Benton online for some time to discuss the finer details of moth identification. He knew Benton had the computer skills to dig around in the official records to find evidence of what had happened under Nigel Lucas’s regime, and who else knew. Patrick didn’t hide the fact that he was in the valley at Gilswick. He wanted to scare Lucas and make him feel uncomfortable. He’d already written to him to demand details of Simon’s stay in the centre. It would never have occurred to him that Lucas might contemplate murder.’
Holly thought about Patrick Randle. Life had been easy for him. He’d had a loving mother, a good education, research that he enjoyed. Why had he felt the need to dig around into the causes of his brother’s suicide, disturbing the lives of all these strangers? Would it have been different if his mother had been honest with him from the start? The story would probably all be made public now anyway. In his obsession he’d lost Becky, the girlfriend who’d adored him.
Vera continued talking. ‘Lucas watched what was going on in the valley. He was obsessive about his wife and liked to know where she was, but he had a voyeur’s curiosity about everything that happened there. He was especially interested in the house-sitter, of course. He understood the rhythm of his days. The afternoon of the murders Lucas saw Randle’s car drive up the lane to the Hall. He wouldn’t have known that Benton was there too, though. From that distance he couldn’t have seen inside the car. Lucas prepared. He knew that Randle usually spent his afternoons working in the Carswells’ garden. That was part of the house-sitting arrangement. He made his way to the Hall, waited until Randle came out of the house to go into the vegetable garden and hit him as he was about to pick leaves for the salad. He dragged him to the drive and used Randle’s own car to dump him by the track. Randle’s jacket was in the car, and Lucas put that on him so that it would look more like a hit-and-run accident. Then he went back to the attic flat to pick up any evidence that Randle might have on the regime in the detention centre. Of course he had no idea that Benton was there.’