Silent Voices (Vera Stanhope 4) (23 page)

‘No.’ This was Ashworth playing it safe, coming up with the old platitudes. ‘We have to ask questions, make connections.’ Vera wouldn’t have minded letting Karen loose on Morgan. She’d have paid to see her rip the man apart, whether he’d killed Danny or not.

‘Did your son have any other close friends at the Willows?’ she asked.

‘I don’t really know about any of Danny’s friends, not any more,’ Karen said. Her voice was cold and quiet. ‘When he was at the high school in Hexham, we used to be close. Like friends. But lately he stopped talking to me. Since he went away to university it felt as if he had a completely new life. I only knew he was meeting Morgan because I saw them together at work. I suppose it was natural, that he should drift away from us when he left home. But he was our only son and it was hard to feel we didn’t have any place in his life. And now he’s left us completely. We’ll never have the chance to make things right again.’ She began to cry.

It was a playgroup day, the weather sunny enough for Connie to walk Alice to the hall. The gossip on the pavement was all about Jenny Lister’s death, which made a pleasant change from the usual bitching about Connie and Elias Jones. Because Connie had worked with the murder victim, she was included in the discussion as they waited for the doors to open. There were small tentative questions at first, but after a few minutes Connie found herself in the centre of a bunch of excited young women. ‘What do you think happened? The newspapers don’t really tell us anything. What have the police said to you?’ Connie felt like a tart, but she gave them just what they wanted, little snippets of information about Jenny and her work with social services. When the hall opened they were hanging on her every word and there was none of the usual rush to get inside.

Veronica Eliot was there, taking registration for the following term. She sat at a small table with a clipboard and pen, shiny-lipped and immaculate in a black linen shirt, its collar so stiffly ironed that Connie wondered it hadn’t slashed the back of her neck like a blade. Connie joined the queue. When things were really bad she’d considered moving Alice to a pre-school in the next village, or even bullying her ex to pay for a private nursery, but Alice would start at the primary in September and it would be madness to move her just for one term.

When she reached the desk there was a moment of awkwardness. She assumed Veronica wouldn’t want their lunch together to be mentioned. It would signal such a U-turn in relations between them that it would be hard for Veronica to explain the shift in attitude to the other playgroup mums. How complicated were these oblique communications between women! Surely men were much more straightforward in their dealings. But Veronica gave her a friendly smile. ‘I did enjoy the other day. We must do it again sometime.’

Connie was quite thrown. She looked at Veronica, suspecting sarcasm or other, more sinister motives. Was this the start of a joke at her expense?

‘It was kind of you.’ She looked around. She was the last in the queue; the other mothers were drifting away. She thought Veronica would never have made the comment if she’d had an audience. ‘Why don’t you come to me?’ Connie wondered why she’d felt the sudden impulse to reciprocate. ‘What about today? Come for tea. You won’t get home baking, but I bought a cake from the Tyne Teashop the other day for a treat and they’re always good.’

Veronica looked up from her paper and Connie expected a put-down, at best a polite excuse. The village had a hierarchy and, even without the complication of her notoriety, they moved in different circles.

‘Thank you!’ Veronica said. Then there was a brief, almost triumphant smile, as if she’d been hoping for the invitation all along. ‘Shall we say about four? I’ll see you then.’ She took the cheque from Connie’s hand and set down her pen.

Connie walked back to the cottage, wondering what had brought about this recent change in Veronica. Really, what was this all about? What could Veronica Eliot possibly want from her?

While Alice was at playgroup, Connie tidied the house. As she polished and vacuumed, she saw it through the older woman’s eyes, imagined the disdainful glances at the tatty furniture, the cobwebs and the grime. But when Veronica arrived a little earlier than expected, surprising Connie by turning up at the kitchen door and carrying a bunch of flowers cut from her garden, she was gracious: ‘Goodness, what a difference you’ve made to the cottage! I came for dinner one night when the owners were here and it wasn’t nearly so cosy then.’

In the end, though, they sat outside, which despite the breeze was more pleasant than the damp house. Alice was wearing her wellingtons and paddling around in the mud and sand that formed a little beach between the burn and the river. Connie poured tea from a china pot she’d found at the back of the larder and cleaned for the occasion. She was reminded again of the young man who’d turned up on the afternoon of Jenny’s murder. She’d had tea outside that day too.

Veronica was talking about her son.

‘He says they still intend to marry in a year’s time. He’d offered to take Hannah away, somewhere abroad, and do it immediately, though I can’t imagine how he thinks that would compensate for her mother’s death! Jenny was no happier about the marriage than I was. Imagine, some sordid ceremony on a beach, surrounded by package tourists. I’m pleased Hannah had the sense not to go along with that plan. She says she owes it to her mother to keep her word and wait until Simon’s got his MA. At least that buys him some time. Who knows how either of them will feel in twelve months?’

‘I suppose he’s due back at the university in a couple of weeks for the start of the new term.’ Connie wasn’t much interested in Simon Eliot’s plans, but she knew the rules of the game. Each woman should allow the other to speak of subjects close to her heart. Soon Veronica would allow Connie to talk of Alice, of how bright she was and how well she’d settled into the area. The primary school in the next village was well considered and over-subscribed. Veronica was a governor and might have influence if there was competition for places. Veronica might have her own agenda for this meeting, but Connie had one too.

‘I’ve told Simon he has to go back to college.’ Veronica was firm. ‘Of course he wants to be around for Hannah, but he has his own life to live. She has a father, for God’s sake. I know they’ve never particularly got on, but I think he should take some responsibility.’ A pause. ‘Don’t you?’ The question was fierce and a little unexpected.

‘I suppose she wants to stay in Barnard Bridge until she’s finished her A levels.’ Connie didn’t want to alienate Veronica now that this new accord had been struck, but she thought Simon should be admired for his loyalty. If anything should happen to
her
, she wasn’t certain she’d entrust Alice to her ex-husband. How could she possibly fit into his new family?

‘Apparently so. And then, if you please, she’s going to move in with Simon in Durham. We bought him a little flat, which was a bargain the way the housing market is, and an investment. Durham’s such a popular city. But we wouldn’t have done that if we’d realized the consequences.’

Alice had waded further into the burn. The water was still shallow there, despite the swollen river beyond, and it hardly covered the feet of her boots, but Connie called after her, glad of an excuse not to answer Veronica. ‘Take care! We don’t want you slipping and getting wet.’

Veronica looked up then, distracted from her own preoccupations, it seemed. ‘Oh yes, dear, do come back and play here. That seems rather dangerous. You’d be much better on dry land.’

‘She’s fine,’ Connie said brusquely. She thought Veronica had probably over-protected her child. Besides, what right did the woman have now to interfere?

Alice had found a stick on the bank and was poking at the vegetation on the opposite side of the burn. There were huge heads of cow parsley that were higher than the girl; the lacy leaves and ribbed stalks must have seemed like a forest of trees to her, exciting and mysterious.

‘Come back!’ Veronica called, her voice seemingly close to panic. ‘Oh, do come back, please.’

Alice turned and frowned, but ignored the stranger.

‘She’s fine,’ Connie said again. She remembered the way Veronica had looked at Alice when they’d been invited to lunch. ‘Really, I think children need to feel they’re having adventures. They have to learn to deal with some risk, don’t you think so?’

‘How can you say that?’ Veronica was almost beside herself. ‘You of all people! You allowed a child to die in your care.’

Alice must have heard the shrill voice and turned back again, troubled by the tone, though she hadn’t taken in the words. There was a moment of quiet. Water running over pebbles. The distant rumble of a tractor. Connie couldn’t trust herself to speak. She wouldn’t lose her temper in front of her daughter.

‘I’m sorry,’ Veronica said at last. ‘That wasn’t fair.’

Perhaps infected by the tension between the adults, Alice began to lash out at the cow parsley with her stick, beating down the plants and stamping on them to make a path into the middle of the vegetation, her furthest foray ever away from the cottage. Connie started to pile up cups and plates. Now she just wanted Veronica to leave. She could see that really they would never do more than tolerate each other. The notion that they might be friends – that she could be included in the charmed circle of people invited for delicious lunches in the big white house – was ridiculous.

‘Look what I’ve found!’ Alice was almost hidden from view and her voice had a strange, muffled quality. Connie stood up, glad to leave Veronica’s side. She walked towards the water, the movement shaking the stress from her muscles. She crossed the burn, balancing on a large, flat rock in the middle so that she didn’t get her shoes wet.

Alice was standing in an untidy clearing in the patch of weeds, looking down. ‘Would you like it, Mummy? Could we keep it?’ And she bent to pick up the squashed leather bag.

Vera called the whole team back to the incident room in Kimmerston to brief them on the Danny Shaw murder. Joe Ashworth wasn’t sure what had got into her. There was a sort of fury that ran in spasms through her body. It was as if she thought the boy had been strangled just to taunt her. Ashworth decided this evening that she was more mad than usual. She was there before the rest of them, pacing up and down at the front of the room. He knew better than to speak to her. He waited in silence for the team to gather.

Charlie was next in. Eyes like a bloodhound and a paper cup of coffee in one hand, some sort of pastry wrapped in greaseproof paper in the other. Charlie was always on the edge of some crisis, a major depression or breakdown. When his wife had left him, they’d thought for a couple of months that he’d lose it completely. She’d always done the practical stuff – washed his clothes and ironed them, cooked his food and cleared up his mess. Like she was his mother. They couldn’t see how he’d cope without her. But he’d pulled himself through it and still he survived, and each day he turned up was a little miracle. He’d even worked out how to use the washing machine, and these days he managed a shave before leaving the house.

Tenacious. That was how Vera had described Charlie to Joe Ashworth: ‘You can’t expect him to do much under his own initiative, but give him clear instructions, then all you have to do is wind him up and let him go.’

Holly was last in, and something about her, the way she looked round her, the self-satisfied smile of apology to Vera for keeping them waiting, let Ashworth know she had something important to share. She’d wait until the end and then make her announcement. Like some bloody conjuror pulling a rabbit from a hat.

Vera glowered at them. She wrote Danny’s name on the whiteboard, stabbing out the letters with the marker.

‘Our second victim. Danny Shaw. Mother Karen works on reception at the health club at the Willows. Father Derek, builder and developer, going through hard times financially. Danny was their only child. Spoilt rotten, then he grew up, went away to university and turned moody on them. Stopped talking. He wanted to be a lawyer and he had a kind of motive for the Lister murder.
If
Jenny Lister caught him stealing from his colleagues.’

‘You think his killing could be a revenge attack?’ Charlie said. ‘Because he strangled the woman?’

Vera stopped, frozen, her arm still outstretched towards the board. Ashworth thought she might have a go at Charlie, call him stupid for dreaming up such a notion. One way of relieving the pent-up tension. But instead she nodded. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s worth considering. Who cared for Lister enough to kill for her?’

‘Her daughter,’ Holly called out from the back of the room.

‘Or her daughter’s boyfriend,’ Vera said. ‘Just because he’s besotted with the girl. I can see him committing murder if she asked him to do it. We mustn’t forget him.’

‘How would Hannah know Shaw?’ Ashworth was all in favour of brainstorming, but this was madness, fantasy time.

‘Wouldn’t they have gone to school together? Only a year between them. We know Simon went to a posh place in town, but Danny and Hannah were both students at the high school in Hexham. Let’s check that out with the teachers, other kids. It’s another connection between the Shaws and the Listers. Holly, you sort it, you’re good at that stuff and nearer in age to the kids than the rest of us.’

She stopped for breath, took a gasp of air. ‘Some more news. I got the call while we were with the Shaw family. They’ve found Jenny Lister’s bag. No news yet on the notebook, though. We’re still waiting to hear. Guess where the bag was found! Barnard Bridge. Just across the burn from Mallow Cottage, Connie Masters’s place.’ She looked around the room. ‘Any ideas?’