Holly thought that she felt tired too – and she’d only spent an afternoon in the place.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Professor Craggs lived in a low stone cottage in a village not far from Hexham and the Roman Wall. All the way there Joe Ashworth was thinking that this was a waste of time. A phone call would have done. But Vera was a great one for face-to-face contact. ‘It’s much easier to lie on the phone,’ she’d said before he set off. ‘And Craggs has known all the players for a long time. Get his take on the set-up at Harbour Street, and dig a bit further for information on Kerr and Enderby. I know Holly spoke to him, but she’s impatient; she doesn’t always give people time to get the words out.’

In the end he enjoyed the drive. Charlie fell asleep as soon as they left Kimmerston, and Joe felt he had every right to play his own music. There was a CD of Jessie’s choir and he had that on as they approached Craggs’s house. He’d chosen the Military Road, built by the Romans. It was straight as the eye could see, following Hadrian’s Wall, and there was little traffic. The soaring children’s voices suited the wide, empty landscape and were only partly spoiled by Charlie snoring beside him. Joe shook Charlie awake as they drove down the narrow road towards the house, a low cottage that could have done with a fresh coat of whitewash. The professor was in the garden, raking dead leaves from an untidy lawn. He heard the gate and turned round, leaning on the rake, faintly hostile. Joe saw that the man had decided they were salesmen or Jehovah’s Witnesses, and he got in first.

‘DS Ashworth. Northumbria Police. And this is my colleague Charles Laidler.’

Craggs was big and square, with cropped grey hair. He hadn’t shaved today and had holes in his trousers and his sweater. A grey mackintosh was tied at the waist with a bit of binder twine. Stick him on Northumberland Street in town, with a ratty dog, and you’d have him down as a well-fed tramp. Joe thought clothes were important, and he wouldn’t have dressed like that even in the garden. The professor and Vera were two of a kind. Maybe she should have driven all this way to do the interview herself.

‘How can I help you, Sergeant?’ Craggs set down the rake.

‘It’s about the murders of Dee Robson and Margaret Krukowski.’

‘I saw on the television that there’d been another killing. A dreadful business. You’d better come inside. I was going to stop soon anyway. Mary was going to make some coffee. Though I’m not sure if I can provide any useful information.’