Silent Voices

Chapter Eleven

Ashworth sat in Connie Masters’s cottage. It was dark and dreary, full of second-hand furniture, everything shabby. The middle of the morning, but they still needed the standard lamp in the corner switched on. And the carpet could have done with a good clean. Joe and his wife furnished their home from Ikea, or Habitat if they could run to it, pale wood and lots of light, the occasional splash of colour.

His head was still full of the morning briefing. After the discussion of the Elias Jones case they’d gone over the pathologist’s report, listed possible suspects at the Willows. Vera had found the method of strangulation interesting. ‘Thin rope. Clever. Nowhere much to hide a murder weapon in swimming trunks or a costume, but you call ball the rope up into a fist and nobody would know you had it with you. That would make this a premeditated crime, wouldn’t it? And the killer must have known Jenny always used the steam room after a swim. He could have been in there waiting for her.’ Then she’d stopped, hit her forehead with the palm of her hand, one of her theatrical gestures, which made Joe think she’d been considering the possibility from the start. ‘What about the nylon string the staff wear round their necks to hold their name badges? Could something like that have killed her? Can we get a sample for comparison?’ Now, in the gloomy cottage, Joe tried to leave the briefing behind and concentrate on the present.

He’d found Connie in the house on her own; her daughter was apparently in playgroup in the village hall. ‘I’ve only got half an hour,’ she’d said as soon as he’d introduced himself. ‘Then I’ll have to go and collect Alice.’ Defensive, not really wanting to let him through the door.

But she had allowed him in and now they sat drinking coffee. She looked tired, grey. Ashworth had glimpsed a couple of empty wine bottles on the kitchen bench and wondered if she was a boozer.

‘Are you telling me it’s a coincidence?’ he said. ‘That you moved in just down the road from Mrs Lister by chance?’

Usually he avoided confrontation in interviews. It wasn’t his style, and besides he found that a quiet and sympathetic approach gave better results. But in this case he’d found himself running out of patience, first with Danny, the student cleaner, and now with this woman. Looking at her, he found it hard to put the images of Elias Jones’s drowned body out of his mind. She hadn’t committed the murder, but she’d allowed it to happen.

She looked up at him, stung by his tone. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I didn’t even know she lived in the village.’

‘You worked with the woman for six years and you didn’t know where she lived?’ He allowed the incredulity into his voice, and the question came out hard, high-pitched.

‘Look, I’m a city girl.’ Connie looked at him over the coffee mug, set it on the table in front of her before continuing. ‘Grew up in London, came to Newcastle as a student. Lived in a flat in Heaton, then when we were married we got a tiny house in West Jesmond. I knew Jenny lived in Northumberland somewhere, out in the wilds. On the rare occasions we socialized – team nights out, that sort of thing – it was in town. Why would I know she lived in Barnard Bridge? Do you know where your boss lives?’

A rhetorical question, but Ashworth answered it in his head. Oh, aye, I know. The number of times I’ve dropped her back there when she’s been too pissed to drive. Or when she’s summoned me at a moment’s notice to talk over a case.

‘You can’t think I killed her?’

Ashworth thought this had really just occurred to Connie. The idea cut through her depression and her hangover. She stared at him now, clear-eyed and horrified.

‘Some folk would think you had a motive. If it hadn’t been for her, you’d still have a job. You wouldn’t be stuck in this place living off benefit, all the world calling you names.’

‘No!’ Connie stood up to make her point. ‘That was down to me. If I’d followed best practice, if I’d made one phone call to Elias’s teacher, if I’d made the effort to visit in the evening when I knew I’d catch him in with Morgan, I’d still be working and I wouldn’t have had my picture all over the newspapers. I didn’t kill Elias. His mother did that. And Jenny Lister didn’t get me the sack. I managed to cock up my professional life all on my own.’

‘She could have backed you up a bit more, twisted the story to get you out of bother.’

Connie smiled and he saw for the first time that she was an attractive woman. ‘Nah,’ she said, ‘that was never going to happen. Not Jenny’s style.’

‘Where were you yesterday morning?’ He was starting to be convinced by her story, but he wasn’t going to let that show.

‘What time?’

‘Between about eight and eleven-thirty.’

‘I was here until nine, when I took Alice to playgroup. That starts at nine-fifteen. I drove her up to the hall and dropped her off, then went into Hexham for an hour. A treat to myself. Window-shopping and a decent coffee. Not quite the same as going into Newcastle, but all I could manage in the time. It was a nice day, so I brought the car back here and walked into the village to collect Alice.’

Ashworth looked out and saw that the rain had stopped. The sky – what you could see of it through the dripping trees – was starting to lighten. ‘Where did you park in Hexham?’

‘Next to the big supermarket, just up from the station.’

‘I don’t suppose you kept the parking ticket?’

‘I didn’t have a parking ticket!’ She was starting to get annoyed now and he liked her better this way: fiery, standing up for herself, rather than listless, all the energy sucked out of her. ‘There’s free parking there, though it’s a bit of a walk into town. I save on the parking and buy myself a coffee instead. Those are the kind of calculations I have to make, living on benefit and the pitiful maintenance my husband contributes for his daughter.’

‘Did you meet anyone you know?’

‘I don’t know anyone out here in the sticks.’

‘You see,’ Ashworth went on, all reason and calm, ‘Jenny Lister’s body was found in the Willows Health Club. That’s about halfway between here and Hexham. Not very far at all. You’d have passed it on your way into the town. Another coincidence, maybe?’

‘Yes, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘Another coincidence.’ She paused. ‘I’ve been to the Willows a couple of times. If you have dinner in the restaurant you can use the pool. That was in the old days, while I was still married, before we had Alice, when a drive into the country on a summer night was a treat.’ She got to her feet and Ashworth thought she was going to call the interview to a close, but she went into the kitchen and fetched the jug of coffee that had been keeping warm on the filter machine. She topped up his mug without asking and refilled her own. He liked milk and sugar, but she didn’t offer those and he didn’t ask.

‘Tell me about Jenny,’ he said. ‘What sort of woman was she?’

‘Efficient,’ she said. ‘Honest. Private.’

‘Did you like her?’

Connie thought about that. ‘I admired her,’ she said. ‘She never let anyone get in close enough to know if we liked her or not. Nobody at work at least. That was her survival technique, I guess. Some people in social services work the other way: all their mates are people in the same business, who understand the stress and frustration. Jenny always said she wanted to leave her job at the office door. Maybe that was why she chose to live so far away from base.’ She paused before continuing. ‘Jenny was always convinced she was right. Always. She listened to the arguments, but once she’d made up her mind about a situation you couldn’t shift her.’

Ashworth thought he had colleagues like that too. And there were plenty of people in the police service who didn’t like to mix work and home. Most of his mates were cops and that was easier because they could get the jokes, share the tension, but some officers didn’t want to know once the shift was over. It made them a bit isolated, outsiders in the team. Had Jenny come across in that way: aloof, maybe even patronizing?

‘Did she talk about her family at all?’

‘I knew she had a daughter, but that was only because Jenny had a photo of a girl on her desk and I asked about her. And when my husband left, Jenny said the same thing had happened to her, when her child was very young. Apart from that, nothing.’

‘You can’t think, then, who might have wanted to kill her.’

‘Oh, I’m sure she had threats,’ Connie said easily, ‘over the years. We all had those.’

‘What do you mean?’

She looked at him as if he were stupid. ‘Our work involved removing children from their families, usually against their will. Of course there were people who hated us. We were challenging their ability to be parents, violating their homes, making them look incompetent or cruel to their neighbours. What do you think the reaction was like? Often it was violent and abusive.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But do I think one of Jenny’s clients killed her? Absolutely not. Most of them live chaotic and disorganized lives and that’s why their children are at risk. No way could they plan a murder like that. They couldn’t even get to the Willows, never mind blag their way inside the health club. I don’t know who killed Jenny Lister, but I’d be astounded if it had anything to do with her being a social worker.’

She gathered up the mugs and took them into the kitchen, came back into the tiny living room to put on outdoor shoes. Ashworth followed her outside. He wasn’t sure it was healthy, living on this low, damp land so close to the water. The garden was overgrown. In a corner rhubarb was starting to sprout, and a few celandines were growing in the long grass. ‘Do you think you’ll be living here long-term then?’ He couldn’t see it. Like she’d said, she was more of a city girl.

‘God, no!’ She pulled a face. ‘But I was desperate to get away from the press, and Frank, my ex, knows the owners. I don’t think I could face a whole winter here.’

At the small gate, which was green with lichen and soft with rot, she paused.

‘There was a stranger in the village,’ she said. ‘Yesterday afternoon. Just after lunch. It’s probably not important. He wasn’t looking for Jenny.’

‘Why don’t you tell me all the same?’

She looked at her watch to check that she had time to wait for a couple of minutes and was reassured.

‘It was a bit odd. We went outside to sit after lunch – there was the first real sun of the spring – and there he was. Alice spotted him on the bridge. He said he’d come on the bus. He was looking for Veronica Eliot. She lives in the big white house by the crossroads. I told him she’d been out when I walked past. I suggested that he wait and offered him tea.’

‘Why would you do that?’ Ashworth disapproved of risk-taking at the best of times. A woman living on her own, it was surely crazy to invite a stranger into her home.

‘I’m not sure. I was lonely. I’m a pariah here since they found out about Elias. I wanted some adult company and he seemed OK. But I wasn’t going to leave Alice alone with him, so I took her in with me to make the tea. And when we got back, he’d disappeared. Like I said: odd. But maybe he saw Veronica’s car turn into her drive. Or maybe he just thought better of hanging out with a mad, desperate housewife and her child.’

Connie gave a small, sad smile and hurried away down the muddy track.