The Moth Catcher by Ann Cleeves

was why I pushed it, when he refused to engage.’
    ‘Why did he approach you then, if he didn’t want to be interviewed?’ Anyone in the street with a clipboard and Joe immediately crossed to the other side.
    ‘I don’t think he noticed me. He seemed completely preoccupied, wrapped up in thoughts of his own. I think he was startled when I spoke to him.’
    ‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ Joe was starting to think that he wasn’t being so lucky after all.
    ‘He walked away up Front Street and I’m fairly sure that he went into an office on the corner.’
    Joe shut his eyes and pictured the scene. Front Street had a row of traditional shops and then there was a newer place. Ugly. Glass and concrete, with the concrete disfigured with damp. Pale-green paint. It had a shop with cards in the window, and inside a row of computers that looked more like gaming machines. And perhaps getting work in Kimmerston was a bit of a lottery. ‘The Job Centre?’
    ‘Of course! That’s it. Yes, he went into the Job Centre.’
    Joe thought his luck must have held out after all. If the man was a claimant, they’d have all his details on file. And if he’d made an appointment or spoken to an officer, it would be easy enough to get a name. Though it was more likely, Joe thought, remembering the grey suit and the old-fashioned specs, that their victim worked there. He looked like the stereotypical civil servant.
    ‘What time were you recording in Kimmerston?’
    ‘I started just after midday. We waited for the clock on the market square to finish chiming before we began. Finished about thirty minutes later. We didn’t need much to go with the news report.’
    So their grey man could have been out of the office for his lunch-break.
Joe pulled his jacket from the back of the chair and went out. The Job Centre was only five minutes away and Vera always said that face-to-face interviews were more valuable than the phone. He took with him the head-shot of the victim.
    It was another sunny day. In the street a couple of young mothers sat at tables outside the coffee shop in the square, chatting as toddlers in buggies snoozed. Elderly women were taking their time shopping, stopping to greet friends and catch up on gossip.
    In the Job Centre Joe waited in the short queue at reception. A woman scarcely looked away from her screen. ‘Yes?’
    He held out his warrant card. ‘I’d like to speak to a manager.’
    ‘Oh.’ She scurried off. Joe looked around and thought the place was depressing. Lots of grey people. An overweight man studied one of the computer screens and walked out, apparently disappointed, letting the door slam behind him.
    A woman with a baby in a buggy was having an argument with a member of staff. ‘So what am I supposed to do about childcare?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ The officer was young and seemed close to tears. ‘I don’t make the rules.’
    Not much of the joys of spring here.
    A middle-aged woman appeared through the door that said
Staff Only
. ‘Come through.’ Brusque, no wasted words. Well-cut hair, a black pencil skirt and black jacket. A woman with ambition. She led him through a large open-plan office and into an interview room. ‘How can I help?’ The tone of her voice made it clear that her time was precious.
    ‘I wonder if you can tell me who this man is?’ He laid the photograph of the grey man on the desk in front of her.
    He was so certain that the grey man had been a colleague that he expected an immediate response. But her only response was a question. ‘Why do you want to know?’
    ‘We suspect that he might have been the victim of an incident last night, and we need to inform his family.’
Incident
, he thought.
A useful catch-all word.
    ‘I don’t recognize him.’ The woman was staring at the photo. ‘But I don’t spend much time on the floor. You’d need to ask the customer-service staff.’
    ‘He doesn’t work here?’
    ‘Oh no!’ As if it were impossible that