‘But that sense that everyone’s interested in your business?’ Holly was genuinely interested in his opinion. People celebrated the North-East for being friendly, but she felt the curiosity almost as a kind of assault. ‘Doesn’t that annoy you?’
He shrugged. ‘I grew up with it. I suppose I’m used to it.’ He paused. ‘I think it just means that people care. And really, it’s not that hard to keep the important things secret. If you need to.’
She gave a little laugh. ‘Well, Lorna seems to have managed well enough. We still haven’t managed to find out who Thomas’s father might be.’
He didn’t bite, so she moved on. ‘Your old uni friends Ollie and Jon said you had a mysterious girlfriend. You managed to keep that to yourself pretty well too.’
He blushed. The colour rose from the collar of his shirt to his hairline. ‘They’ve got good imaginations.’
‘My boss, Inspector Stanhope, the woman who came to the farm the night of your sister’s party, thought that might have been Lorna.’ Holly raised her hands, palms up, a gesture of helplessness. ‘Look, I know she’s a bit eccentric, but she’s in charge and she told me to ask. I’m sorry if it’s intrusive, but you do see we need to know.’ She thought again how young he was. He seemed so naive, hardly more than a schoolboy.
‘Lorna was a friend,’ he said. ‘I saw her more often than I told your inspector, but that was because my mother was there when she asked. My mother disapproved. She thought Lorna would be trouble. Hard work. I don’t know . . . I’m not sure why she took against her. Usually Mum’s the first person to support folk on hard times.’
The cynic in Holly thought that if Josh was the murderer, this would have been clever. He’d know his fingerprints would be in Lorna’s house, so best to admit to having been there at least once. But she couldn’t see him as that calculating and he was admitting to Holly now that he’d been a regular visitor. Besides, he’d been in Newcastle when the woman had been killed.
‘Perhaps the history of anorexia concerned her?’
He nodded, gave a wry smile. ‘Mam said I didn’t need that sort of responsibility when I was starting off, that I’d only get hurt. You know what mothers are like.’
‘And you are her only son. And the oldest.’
He nodded again, pleased that Holly understood. ‘Nettie and Cath seem to get away with murder.’ The last word seemed to catch in his throat and the blush returned. ‘I mean they can wrap Dad round their little fingers.’
‘When was the last time you saw Lorna?’
‘She was at the art class the Monday before she was killed. Afterwards I went back to her house for coffee.’ He paused. ‘She didn’t want people to know we were getting friendly, so she left the village hall with Thomas and I went along when I’d cleared up. There’s an alley behind her house and a back gate into the garden. I always used that.’ He looked at Holly. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but she’d been the subject of so much talk in the village – the anorexia and then being so secretive about the baby – that I could understand all the cloak-and-dagger stuff.’
‘Maybe it made it a bit exciting?’ Holly suggested.
‘Yeah, maybe.’ He paused. ‘The best times were when we could get away together, leave everything behind. I’d pick her up with the baby and we’d head out somewhere miles from the village. Once we went out to the coast. It was one of those beautiful days you can get in September. We went to Druridge Bay, I put Thomas in the sling and we walked all the way along the beach, then stopped for ice cream in Cresswell on the way back.’
‘That was what you wanted,’ Holly said. ‘To be a real family?’
‘I wanted it more than anything.’
What a romantic he was, Holly thought. What did he picture? Himself and Lorna farming in the valley, just as his parents had done? More children perhaps? Or setting up some artistic venture together.
‘Lorna wasn’t interested?’
‘We weren’t even lovers.’ There was a touch of bitterness in his voice. ‘Sometimes I thought she was using me, because she was lonely, others we felt really close.’
‘You aren’t Thomas’s father?’
‘No! I was still at university when Thomas was born. I only started seeing Lorna regularly when I came home in the summer. She never talked about the man and I never asked. Really, I didn’t want to know.’
Joe had phoned Holly just before she’d come out to the gallery: Someone gave Lorna a lift back to Kirkhill after she had the meeting with Olivia on Thursday. Can you find out if it was Josh Heslop?
‘Lorna met a friend in Kimmerston the morning before she died. We know she got a lift back to Kirkhill from someone she knew. You’re saying that the person who drove her home definitely wasn’t you?’
‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘I remember the last time I saw her.’ A pause. ‘I’d asked if she wanted to come to the party in Newcastle with me, to meet my friends. I thought she’d enjoy it. She never really had a chance to be young, to let her hair down. Never did the whole student thing. I said we could take Thomas if she liked. I promised I wouldn’t drink and I’d look after the baby, so she could have some fun.’
‘You asked her on the Monday, after the art class?’
He nodded.
‘What did she say?’
‘That she’d think about it.’ He paused again. ‘And she smiled, as if she was glad to be asked. That was the last time I saw her. It was one of those clear, frosty days we had at the beginning of the week and the sun was shining through her living-room window, catching one side of her face, and she had Thomas on her lap. I let myself out of the house, and walked down to
