The Moth Man (Alex Hastings Series)

by Jennie Finch

  To his surprise Brian gave a short, humourless laugh.

  ‘Last Friday?’ he said. ‘Well, shows what you lot know, don’t it. Got me a alibi for Friday. An’ a right good’un an all. Now, what about my solicitor?’

  There was something wrong here. Brian was not the strongest of characters and he regularly folded when interrogated but this time he showed no signs of any concern.

  ‘You don’t have a solicitor,’ said Dave. ‘You’ve never been able to afford a solicitor Brian. Why do you suddenly want one now?’

  ‘Duty bloke’ll do,’ came the reply. ‘Just want someone here as my witness. Now that’s all I’s sayin’ ’til he gets here.’

  Dave got up and left the room, leaving Brian to stare defiantly at the one-way mirror in the room.

  ‘Get him the duty solicitor,’ said the Inspector shortly. ‘I want to know how he got those shoes and just exactly what this bloody alibi is. And I want to know now.’

  When Dave returned to the interview room he was accompanied by the duty solicitor, a thin and nervous associate from one of Highpoint’s three firms, and Sergeant Lynas who was preparing himself to play ‘bad cop’ should it prove necessary. The seniors, it seemed, had decided to let the junior officers take the blame for this should it prove to be a disaster.

  ‘I would like to consult my client,’ began the solicitor rather nervously but Brian shook his head.

  ‘Just want you here,’ he said. ‘And that on.’ He pointed to the tape recorder on the table.

  Dave and Lynas exchanged glances before the sergeant started the recording by identifying the people in the room. Something was wrong and this interview was not going as planned. Acutely aware of the witnesses just the other side of the glass, Dave waited for Lynas to make the first move but as the silence stretched out painfully he realised he was going to have to say something.

  ‘So, tell us where you were last Friday evening,’ he said.

  ‘I’m instructing my client not to answer that question,’ the solicitor said.

  Brian brushed his intervention aside, leaned forward and grinned, his chipped front tooth giving him a feral look.

  ‘Was banged up in Highpoint on account of them little bomb things I found,’ he said gleefully.

  At the mention of bombs the solicitor turned very pale. This was more than he had bargained for and he looked as if he wished the floor would open and swallow him up. Dave understood exactly how he felt and from the sudden stillness of Sergeant Lynas beside him, he knew they were about to be made into fools in the eyes of his superiors. His desire to strangle Brian returned in all its fury, though for a different reason.

  ‘So how did you come by the boots?’ he asked, desperate to salvage something from the situation.

  ‘Found ’em,’ said Brian with a shrug.

  ‘What do you mean, “Found them”’ asked Lynas. ‘What, they were just lying around in the road and you picked them up? Someone gave them to you? Elves left them on your doorstep?’

  Brian glared at him. ‘Found ’em in a tin,’ he said. ‘Out by Currie Bridge, they was. Buried under a hedge.’

  ‘So if they were buried as you claim, how did you manage to stumble across them?’ Lynas demanded.

  ‘Was using my detector,’ Brian said. ‘Got a good loud signal so I dug around, found this tin and there was clothes and stuff in it. No name ‘nor nothing so I kept they boots ’cos they’s right smart and mine was full of holes. Shirt too – chucked the Hinkleys mind.’

  Dave jumped in, his heart pounding with excitement. ‘What about the tin,’ he said. ‘Where’s the tin, Brian?’

  ‘Threw ‘um back,’ said Brian. ‘Along with the old paper and stuff.’

  ‘What “old paper”?’ pressed Dave, barely able to contain his impatience.

  ‘I really think I need to talk to my client,’ the solicitor squeaked.

  ‘Was a load of old newspaper in my boots,’ said Brian. ‘Sort of packed around the sides but I couldn’t get my feet in so I pulled it all out and they fit perfect. When do I get ’em back then?’

  Alex arrived at Highpoint police station to protest Brian’s arrest at the same time as the phone call came through demanding verification of his arrest and detention. Receiving short shrift at the desk, she made her weary way across the river and plodded into the hospital where Jonny sat, red-eyed and exhausted by Lauren’s side. Alex sent him off to get some breakfast and took his place, holding the small, cool hand in hers.

  There were still no other patients in the intensive care unit and so she talked softly to her friend, knowing she wasn’t going to disturb anyone. Secure in her isolation, she found herself opening up, telling Lauren little stories from her childhood and events from her past. It felt good to share more of herself after so many years of silence although she was fairly sure Lauren couldn’t hear her. Even if she could, it was unlikely she would ever remember anything when – if – she woke.

  There was a footstep behind her and Alex glanced up to see Sue at the door beckoning to her. Reluctantly Alex followed her into the corridor.

  ‘Another phone call,’ said Sue. ‘This time from Taunton. They’re going to release Brian – obviously – but he’s got no shoes. They’re keeping his as evidence apparently. Have we got anything in the store at the day centre?’

  Alex sighed and dug her keys out from her pocket. ‘Here – do you mind …’

  ‘Oh, who needs a weekend anyway,’ said Sue. ‘You’d better take my house key so you can get back in. I’ll drive him home or wherever he’s dossing at the moment and maybe then we can lock the door, put on the stereo and get happily drunk for the rest of the day.’

  As she returned to Lauren, Alex had to admit she was sorely tempted. In fact, she wished she could share the proposed boozy weekend with Margie too. Her head full of pleasant imaginings, she sat down and slipped back into her reminiscing. Without realising it, she moved into some of the areas normally kept guarded and hidden. In fact, she was so absorbed in the soft telling she didn’t notice Lauren’s breathing had changed along with her heartbeat until the nurse hurried over from the desk by the door, shoved her aside roughly and dragged the curtains around the bed.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lynas arrived at Highpoint police station to find Dave had been called into the hospital and with sinking heart he drove over the bridge, abandoning his car in a space marked ‘Senior Registrar’ before running up the stairs two at a time. At the door to the intensive care ward he stopped, taking a deep breath before opening it.

  ‘Really, this is too much,’ said the duty nurse crossly. ‘This is a hospital not a social club. Who are you and what are you doing here?’

  Lynas fished in his pocket, flashed his warrant card and kept walking without a word, leaving the nurse trailing in his wake.

  ‘You must not agitate the patient. She needs as much rest as possible and this level of excitement is not good for her.’

  As the implication of her words struck home, Lynas turned back, grabbed one of her hands and squeezed it tightly.

  ‘Thank you!’ he said, a big grin over his face.

  Behind the curtain Dave sat on one side of the bed with Jonny on the other, standing behind an older woman who was sitting by Lauren and holding her hand. Alex stood off to one side, a dopey smile on her face as she watched Lauren who was now propped up in the bed with several fewer tubes and wires issuing from her small body.

  Jonny glanced over, acknowledging Lynas with a nod before turning his attention back to his sister. Dave raised his eyebrows questioningly at his sergeant. Lauren whispered something and Dave leaned over to catch what she was trying to say.

  ‘Go on, I’m fine. Got people here so you get off to work.’

  Dave bent over and kissed the top of her head before sliding out of the curtained area.

  ‘Good to see her doing better,’ said Lynas leading Dave off the ward with a nod of thanks to the nurse at the desk.

  Dave let out a long, deep sigh. �
�I can’t believe how close we were to losing her,’ he said. ‘She’ll be in hospital for a few more days at least and then she’ll need complete rest at home for a while.’

  Lynas, who had encountered Lauren on several occasions, hid a smile.

  ‘Good luck with that, then,’ he said.

  On their return to the car there was a note attached to the windshield, fluttering in the light breeze. Lynas ripped it off, tore it into several pieces and tossed the keys to the vehicle at Dave.

  ‘Just be a moment,’ he said. At the reception window Lynas pushed the remains of the note over to a rather startled porter who was sitting at the bench having a cup of tea.

  ‘Official police business,’ said Lynas. ‘Clue to that is written on the side of my vehicle – says POLICE, right? So I don’t expect to be hearing any more about this.’ Whistling cheerfully he headed back to the car. Things were going their way at last.

  Sue had found several serviceable pairs of size 11 shoes in the emergency clothes cupboard and drove with them over to Taunton. Brian was waiting in reception and received these offerings with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Was lovely, my new boots,’ he grumbled, trying on a pair of sneakers. ‘Now I got this tin of red polish – what’m I gonna do with that then? Waste of two quid, that was if’n they’s not givin’ ’em back.’

  A quick enquiry at the desk ascertained they were certainly not giving them back. The boots were evidence to a serious crime and, in the desk sergeant’s opinion, Brian was damn lucky they weren’t charging him with something.

  ‘Well, what about my flowers then?’ Brian asked.

  It took several more minutes to work out the basis of this complaint but Sue finally decided it was not worth taking this one up with the desk sergeant.

  ‘Tell you what, Brian,’ she said, ‘we’ll pop into a florist on the way over and get some flowers. I’ll sort it out here later.’

  The sergeant sniffed and turned his back at this but Sue went over to the window, forcing him to look up from his paperwork.

  ‘Is Brian free to go?’ she asked and he nodded reluctantly.

  ‘We may need to speak to him later,’ he said. ‘He must inform us immediately if he ceases to reside at …’ Here he scrabbled at the forms on his desk. ‘At Caravan Cottage, Sutton Mallet.’

  Sue looked over at Brian, surprised by this. She was under the impression he was still residing, somewhat uneasily, with his family.

  Brian nodded he understood and rose to his feet, heading out into the bright light of the morning. Sue followed, wondering how Ada fitted into all of this. She felt a little guilty about not visiting for so long but life and work had been so hectic it had just not been possible.

  Once Brian had a new bunch of flowers they set off towards the low, watery plain of the Somerset Levels. Brian looked around Sue’s car approvingly.

  ‘Nice motor, this,’ he said. ‘Not like that weird thing Alex drives. Never could get used to all that rising and falling.’

  Privately Sue agreed with him over the eccentricities of Alex’s aging Citroën but she was not about to criticise her friend behind their back.

  ‘That is a classic car in the making,’ she said. ‘You just wait. In twenty years people will still be talking about it.’

  Brian was not really interested enough to get into a squabble so he just nodded and returned to staring out of the windows.

  ‘So, what’s this with you and Ada?’ Sue asked as she navigated the turn from the main road onto the Levels proper. The car jolted and bumped along for a few yards before the track smoothed out and the wheels hissed softly as they gripped the gravel and mud of the surface.

  ‘Was Tom took us in,’ said Brian. ‘Said I should apologise on account of Charlie and them bombs ’cos they’s causing all kinds of problems what with the electricity and all. Then I started helping around a bit, ‘specially with Pongo. He’s girt lovely is Pongo.’

  Sue took a deep breath, let it out again and decided not to bother. Really, she should have known better than to expect any sort of sense from a lad like Brian Morris. When she opened the car door and stepped out beside Ada’s cottage, Sue sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘What is that smell?’ she demanded.

  Brian managed to disentangle himself from the seat belt and emerged, still clutching his flowers protectively.

  ‘What smell? Oh – is Pongo,’ he said hurrying up the path and disappearing through the side gate. Sue locked the car doors and followed him, a trifle reluctantly as the smell got stronger with every step. Stepping through the gate she found herself facing the source of the aroma. Pongo, she decided, was very well named. He was also huge and the strange horizontal pupils in his large brown eyes gave him a slightly devilish look. Pongo ambled up to the fence, pushing through the as-yet uneaten undergrowth and chewing reflectively. Sue beat a hasty retreat towards the kitchen door just as Ada looked out.

  ‘Well, come on in then’ she said, holding the door. Inside it was warm from the old range where a battered kettle hissed and bubbled ready for tea. Half of the room was in bright sunlight streaming through the door, the rest was dark, lit only by the soft glow of an old paraffin storm lantern. Sue took a seat at the table and watched as Brian moved around the kitchen taking out cups and saucers, pouring milk into a jug and setting the table for tea. He seemed perfectly at home and Ada was obviously equally comfortable with him. Well, thought Sue, you never know what you’re going to find out on the Levels.

  ‘Have you had a power cut?’ she asked as she peered around the dimly lit end of the room.

  ‘Told yer,’ said Brian. ‘Is the trouble with that electricity.’

  ‘Hush now!’ Ada said. ‘Is nothing to worry her with.’ She handed a cup of tea down the table followed by some rather delicious-looking gingerbread.

  ‘Wow, thanks,’ said Sue. She took a large bite and the cake was as good as it promised to be. ‘This is really excellent. Did you make it?’

  Ada smiled at her. ‘Is some advantages to using the old range,’ she said. ‘Always makes right decent baking even if is a bit slower.’

  Sue nodded, her mouth still full of cake. ‘Even so Ada, Brian said something about there being a problem. Maybe I can help.’

  Ada scowled at Brian but she was worn out with worrying and even the knowledge she had all that money put by now didn’t seem to offer much reassurance. She’d been poor most of her life and that didn’t scare her but the threat of going to court, even possibly ending up in prison – that did. She trusted Sue almost as much as she trusted Tom and after a moment she set down her cup, went to the mantelpiece and unfolded a letter from the electricity board.

  ‘Here,’ she said placing it in front of Sue. ‘Came just yesterday. To be honest, I don’t have no clue about what to do.’

  Alex left the hospital and made her way home just before lunchtime. Lauren had her family around her including a bewildering number of cousins and aunts and the duty nurse was reduced to ringing around the empty hospital in the vain hope of locating someone with sufficient authority to enforce the ‘only two visitors at a time’ rule. Eventually it was Lauren herself who imposed some order by declaring she was very tired, she was delighted to see them all but she really would appreciate some privacy while she ate her lunch.

  Alex joined the exodus, rather shaky now from hunger, stress and lack of sleep and arrived back at her empty house with the beginnings of a very nasty headache taking up residence in her skull. Forcing herself to eat a rather dry sandwich, she took her tea out into the garden hoping the quiet would help.

  She was startled to see old Mr Pond from next door scuttling out of sight behind the fence and walked over to the edge of her garden, curious to see what had prompted his odd behaviour. Glancing over into next door’s, she was just in time to see the back door slam. At the join of the two houses she noticed the raspberries were just starting to fruit and stopped to examine the canes. Most of the berries were still small, green
and hard but a few were already turning red. One or two looked as if they were ripe and she picked these, savouring their tart sweetness on her tongue. Feeling the fatigue flooding through her body, she abandoned her garden to the birds, picked up the cup and went back inside, dragging her way upstairs to the crumpled but so-welcoming bed.

  It seemed only a few minutes but a glance at her watch showed she had been asleep for almost two hours when a hammering on the front door roused her. Groaning softly and silently cursing herself, she got up and peered out of the window. Her heart sank as she recognised the car parked across the street and she tottered downstairs and wrenched the door open with a decidedly bad grace.

  ‘What?’ she demanded as Dave Brown stepped inside, clutching his case file. ‘Not Lauren? She was fine when I left.’

  Dave looked guiltily around and shook his head.

  ‘She’s fine. And thank you again for all you’ve done. I feel really bad, imposing on you like this but …’ He set the file down on the table and started pulling out papers and forms.

  Alex knew when she was beaten. She might as well get on with whatever he had in mind and get back to sleep as soon as possible.

  ‘This is what we’ve got,’ said Dave as he explained about Brian Morris, the metal detector and the pineapple tin.

  ‘I knew the little shit hadn’t lost the damn thing,’ said Alex.

  ‘Just as well for us he hadn’t,’ said Dave. I doubt we would have uncovered it, however hard we looked. As it is, we’ve got a lot more information but I’m worried we may be running out of time. There was only a week between the last two attacks and if he’s escalating he may strike again at any time.’

  Alex picked up a copy of the local map, studying it closely. ‘These are the sites of the incidents, right?’