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doctor. Since he’s been back he’s seemed better than I’ve known him for years. He gets a bit of company from some lad that visits every couple of weeks.’ She broke off. ‘I suppose he’s the closest Martin had to a friend – you’ll need to tell him.’
    ‘Who was he, the visitor? A community psychiatric nurse?’
    Kitty shook her head. ‘Martin had one of those when he first came out of hospital. A lass. Didn’t look much like a nurse to me. Fishnet tights and a skirt that barely covered her behind. Enough to give a healthy man palpitations.’
    ‘So who was the lad?’ Joe was starting to feel that he was losing the plot.
    ‘Name of Frank. Maybe he was a teacher with Martin, though he didn’t look like a teacher. Big lad. Tattoos. Or perhaps they met in hospital.’
    ‘Do you have a second name for him?’
    Kitty shook her head.
    ‘According to the Job Centre, Martin was planning to become self-employed rather than go on Jobseeker’s Allowance. Any idea what that was about?’ Joe thought maybe Benton had set up as a private tutor. There was plenty of call for people to give a bit of extra coaching, especially in maths. And surely it’d be easier to deal with one child than a rowdy classroom. But why would that have taken him to the big house at Gilswick? There were no kids there.
    ‘I never really talked to him once Elsie died,’ Kitty said. ‘He was always pleasant enough. Took in my parcels if I missed the postman. A good neighbour. But if he confided in anyone, it wasn’t me.’ She paused. ‘He wouldn’t have been completely without money, if they stopped his benefit. Elsie and him never spent much at all, and his father left him a little nest egg. But maybe he felt he wanted to do his own thing – after years of trying to please his mother, maybe he wanted a bit of independence.’
    Kitty gave Joe a key to the back door of Benton’s house. She’d had it since Elsie had died. Joe stood in the Benton yard and phoned Vera. ‘What do you want me to do?’
    There was a pause. ‘Well, it’s not a murder scene, is it? We know Benton was killed in the flat at Gilswick Hall. We’ll get the CSIs into his house as soon as they can make it, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to have a look first. I just need something to link Benton to Randle, and we’ve got bugger-all at the moment.’
    He waited before opening the door and took time to look around the yard. A washing line with a shirt and a pair of socks dangling in the sunshine. Did that mean Benton was planning to come back the night before, to take them in? Joe had never done his own washing, but Sal would never leave laundry out overnight. A shed, very tidy. Tools hanging on nails, a stepladder. In the yard a couple of pots with daffs, dying now.
    Joe unlocked the door and stepped into a back kitchen. And back into time and his nana’s house. A sink and a twin-tub washing machine. Then a step into the kitchen proper. If Benton had been pampered by his mother, there was no sign here that he hadn’t been able to care for himself. No dirty pots. The small gas cooker was so clean that it shone, and a tea towel had been folded on the rail. He opened the elderly fridge to find a carton of milk, four eggs and a supermarket packet of bacon. Then a row of small jars. All clean and all empty. Joe stared at them for a moment, but couldn’t think what they might be for. The house was long and narrow and seemed squashed by the houses on either side. At this point the only light came from the small scullery window.
    He walked through to a dining room, gloomy and stale. Joe wanted to open a window and let in some air. A dark wood table and four matching chairs and a sideboard. Clean enough, but dusty. There was a gas fire in a tiled surround that looked so old Joe wouldn’t have wanted to try lighting it. None of the rooms had central heating. He thought that this room hadn’t been used since Elsie had died. Maybe not even before that.
    Opening the door