‘Who is she?’ Nigel seemed calm, almost detached. ‘I don’t recognize her from the village.’
Annie pushed her way to the front of the group so that she could get a better view. The clothes were familiar. The patent-leather shoe with its small heel. She felt suddenly bereft, as if a relative had died. ‘I know her. That’s Shirley Hewarth. She’s the social worker who’s been visiting our Lizzie.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Holly had been asleep for an hour when she got the call. She recognized Joe Ashworth’s voice immediately, even before she looked at the caller ID, and was awake and alert. She’d switched on the bedside lamp. Her bedroom was mostly white. White linen, white walls. Pale-green blinds at the window. One ex-lover had called it antiseptic. Like living in a hospital.
She always kept a notebook at the side of her bed and she was writing as she pulled clothes out of the drawer with one hand. The name of the victim brought her up short. ‘Who?’
‘Shirley Hewarth. The woman from Hope NorthEast.’
Holly was thinking fast now, making connections. ‘Martin Benton’s boss.’
‘Aye, and supervising the daughter of one of the Valley Farm families.’
‘But no link to Patrick Randle.’
‘Not as far as we know.’ Joe spoke slowly, but she thought he was running through the possibilities in his head too.
‘I don’t suppose she’s a moth expert?’
He gave a little laugh. ‘The boss wants us all out there to talk to the witnesses. She doesn’t want to leave it until the morning.’
Of course not. That would be far too easy.
‘Who found the body?’ Holly held the phone between her ear and her shoulder so that she could pull on a pair of jeans. The great thing about women was their ability to multi-task. Sometimes she thought that was Vera’s only feminine attribute.
‘Janet O’Kane. She was walking the Carswells’ dogs last thing. The body was just off the track, lying across the footpath that leads to the hill.’
‘Not hidden then.’ She put the phone on the bed while she pulled a jersey over her head. ‘Sorry, I missed that.’
‘Hewarth was close enough to the track to have been dumped from a car,’ Joe said. ‘Billy Cartwright and Paul Keating are on their way. No information yet about whether she was murdered where she was found.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Outside the boss’s house. She asked me to pick her up on the way to the scene. I think she had a few drinks last night. With her neighbours.’ Joe’s disapproval was obvious. He disliked the couple who farmed the smallholding next to Vera’s house. He thought they were feckless and that they led Vera astray.
‘I’ll see you there then.’ Holly was going to add: Race you. But Joe would have disapproved of that too. She’d never before met a police officer who was so law-abiding.
When she arrived at the scene Vera and Joe had just arrived. Vera was wearing strange baggy trousers tucked into wellington boots and looked even less like a senior detective than usual. Holly wondered if they might be pyjama bottoms, because she couldn’t believe Vera owned a tracksuit. All the cars had been directed to park next to the Valley Farm development. Big arc lights had already been set up where the footpath joined the track and the crime-scene team were just erecting a scene tent over the body. Everything was in monochrome, with sharp shadows and black silhouettes, all the officers and CSIs in their white suits and masks. It looked like a film set. For a horror movie perhaps. Something about a deadly virus infecting the world.
Vera was struggling to get into the scene suit, moaning as she always did that they were never big enough. ‘Do they think all police officers are bairns? Or anorexic?’
Holly followed her through the cordon and into the tent. She recognized the victim from her clothes and the little pearl earrings, but thought Shirley Hewarth looked older in death than she remembered, when they’d talked in the charity’s office.
‘Will anyone be waiting for her at home?’ Vera’s words were muffled by the mask.
Joe shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I’m not sure why, though. Perhaps she said. She lived in Cullercoats. I checked the actual address, because I was curious to know what sort of place it was.’
‘And?’
‘A Tyneside flat close to the sea front. Nothing flash. It doesn’t sound like a family home.’
‘She’s not wearing a wedding ring.’ Billy Cartwright was squatting next to the body. ‘Not that that means anything.’
Vera turned suddenly. ‘Hol, would you go? Better you than some plod knocking on the door, if there is anyone in the place. You’d met her at least. She’s of an age to have grown-up kids and they seem to bounce back these days, don’t they? The boomerang generation.’ A pause. ‘So even if she doesn’t have a partner, there might be someone at home who needs to know what’s happened to her, before they read it in the press. See if you can get into the house, even if it’s empty. It’d be good to get your opinion of the place before we get a search team in. Anything that might tell us what she was doing out here tonight.’ Vera paused again. ‘Or why she was dumped here.’
So Holly found herself back in her car, driving towards the coast, along the empty night-time roads.
The flat was in a quiet street, narrow and tree-lined. At the end of it was the main road that led along the coast, and beyond that the sea. There were no lights in any of the houses. It was early morning, so everyone was asleep. Classic Tyneside flat-layout: it looked like a standard 1930s terrace, but with two doors side by side at each house. One led to the ground-floor flat, and one to steps and the second flat upstairs. Shirley Hewarth lived on the first floor. Holly rang the bell. No answer.
There was a small window open at the front of the flat, but that wouldn’t help her get in, unless she was prepared to climb the drainpipe in full view of any passer-by. And it wasn’t long until dawn now. There’d be joggers and dog-walkers making their way to the sea front. She felt along the lintel of the door. No key. The small front garden would be the responsibility of the ground-floor flat. It was overgrown. Rubbish had blown into the borders and the grass was almost knee-high. There were no curtains at the window and there was enough light from the street lamp to see that the place was empty. No furniture. Perhaps it had just been sold or was being prepared to rent out.
Outside Shirley’s door two pots had been planted with brightly coloured annuals. They were too heavy to lift, but Holly ran her fingers through the compost, which was almost dry. A couple of inches below the surface of the second pot she found the key. Shirley might once have been a probation officer, but she hadn’t been very good about security. Holly pulled on her scene suit and let herself in.
There was a light switch just inside the door and she turned it on.
‘Hello! Is anyone at home?’ Holly was a light sleeper, but she supposed a relative or lover might have slept through the bell. No response.
The stairs led up from a narrow hallway. It was uncluttered. No junk mail or free newspapers waiting to be dumped in the recycling bin. There was carpet on the stairs and it had been hoovered so recently that there were still stripes in the pile. Had Shirley cleaned because she was expecting guests? Or was she always so house-proud? Holly suspected the latter and wondered briefly how Hewarth could have worked for the charity in the mucky office in Bebington. And her work would have taken her to even more scuzzy houses, when she was interviewing her clients. But my work takes me into places that make me feel filthy just stepping in through the door. Perhaps that’s why we both kept our homes so clean.
At the top of the stairs there was a hall with four doors leading off. A coat-stand and shoe-rack. Everything orderly, everything in its place. The first door led to the bathroom. Holly found only women’s toiletries in the wall cupboard and only one toothbrush in the glass mug by the sink. So it seemed Shirley had lived here alone. Like Holly and Vera, she’d been a single woman.