Silent Voices

Chapter Twenty-Three

Vera parked in the main street of the village and went in search of food. The pub was open and she was tempted, but she knew how word got around in small places: that big boss policewoman was drinking at lunchtime. And besides, she wanted more than a bag of crisps and it seemed there was nothing else on offer. Walking down the street, she got on the phone to Ashworth. ‘Lister’s handbag. It still hasn’t turned up. A big red leather affair that she used as a briefcase.’ Knowing that shouting at him would serve no real purpose, because the team already had it as a priority and most of Northumbria Police were already looking for it. She had low blood sugar and it always made her radgy. ‘Any chance you can meet me at Danny Shaw’s place? I thought it was about time I met him.’

She found the Tyne Teashop and decided that would do. All the windows looked out on the river, and the place had a calm green light from the trees and the reflections of water that had seeped out onto the flood meadow. Most of the tables were occupied. Older couples: big bossy women and slight subdued men for the most part. You should have carried on working, pet, she thought, directing her sympathy to the men. Bet you never thought early retirement would be like this, acting as chauffeur to the wife, and endless cups of tea.

Then she turned her attention to home-made corned-beef pie and the whereabouts of Jenny Lister’s handbag. Had the murderer taken it from her locker? Did that mean she was murdered for what it contained: notes for the book she planned to write. And what had happened to it since? It would be hard to destroy a substantial bag, though of course the paper inside could have been burned. She shook her head and moved on to a meringue filled with cream and covered with grated chocolate. The meringue was crisp on the outside and slightly squelchy in the middle, as near perfect as was possible for an object that was a work of art, not science. The bag – along with the notebook – was probably in a landfill somewhere and would never be seen again.

Joe Ashworth was already waiting for her outside Danny Shaw’s house and she got into his car to talk before they went in. The house was grander than she’d expected, an extended detached cottage with a bit of an orchard at the back. Move it halfway up a mountain and she’d have been prepared to live there herself. It stood in a valley on the edge of a hamlet halfway between Barnard Bridge and the Willows, surrounded by established trees.

She nodded towards it. ‘I thought you said they’d fallen on hard times since the recession.’

‘Probably mortgaged to the hilt,’ he said. ‘Maybe they see it as an asset to hold on to. But that’s why the mother got the job at the Willows.’

‘She’ll be at work now?’

‘I assume so.’

Out of the car, there was that cacophony of woodland birdsong that seemed to be a soundtrack to this case. She tried not to hear it, refusing to take her father’s test. The garden was wild; the lawn hadn’t had its first cut of the spring and there were weeds poking through the paving stones of the path that led from the front gate. There was the remnant of an untidy bonfire in one corner. Maybe once they’d had a weekly gardener, but that had probably been one of the expenses to go. Nearer the house they heard music.

‘Bingo!’ she said. ‘Not a wasted trip then.’

Danny was sitting outside on a paved terrace, a portable CD player on the table beside him. His legs were stretched so that his feet rested on another wooden garden chair and there was an open book on his knee. But that was lying page-down. And although his face was turned away from her, she sensed that he was sleeping. There wasn’t much warmth in the sun and he was wearing a big grey jersey, his chin buried in the collar.

‘You’ve got to make the most of it this time of year, haven’t you?’ Vera perched on the table. It rocked under her weight. The boy didn’t reply.

There was a moment of anger. Cocky little bastard. Even if he’d been asleep the question would have woken him.

‘Talk to me, lad!’

Still no response. It seemed to take her an age to realize what had happened. She reached out to feel for a pulse, had the sensation of cold, dead flesh under her fingers, but still she didn’t believe it. She lifted his eyelids and saw the red pinpricks in the whites of his eyes and pulled back the deep collar of his sweater to see the line around his neck. Only then did it hit her, like a punch in the gut, that Danny had been killed too. Strangled in the same way as Jenny Lister. This time, the death was her responsibility, her failure. The music from the CD player thumped in her ears, taunting her, drowning out the sound of the birds. She knew better than to touch it. There could be a partial fingerprint on the flat plastic switch. But the noise was driving her crazy and she walked away from it, back towards the road, just pulling herself together sufficiently to shout to Joe, ‘Stay there. I’ll call it in.’

Standing by her car, waiting for the CSIs – the hoopla of experts who gathered at a murder like raptors over a dead sheep – she wished for the first time in ten years that she still smoked. She hadn’t known Danny Shaw, but his death moved her more than any she’d encountered professionally. She’d been cruising on this case. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that there might be another killing. Now her mind raced. Why was Danny Shaw murdered? For something he’d seen? For something he’d known?

There was the sound of a car in the road. Vera expected it to be the community officers she’d requested to secure the scene, but it was small and green, and Danny’s mother was inside.

Karen Shaw was out of it like a shot. ‘Can I help you?’ Prickly, ready to pick a fight, assuming Vera was there to hassle her son. Which of course she had been. Then she seemed to sense Vera’s mood. She stood in the middle of the road. ‘What’s happened? Where’s my boy?’

Vera couldn’t find the words to answer. Before Vera could stop her, Karen had let herself into the house and was running through it screaming for her son.

By the time Vera reached her she’d gone into the garden through a French window in the dining room and Joe Ashworth had her in his arms. She was very small; her head just came up to his chest. He held her there and let her sob. Vera stood watching, helpless, useless. At least by then the CD was over and the music had stopped.

Later, the three of them sat in a neighbour’s living room. Karen hadn’t wanted to leave her own house, but Joe had explained. ‘We have to let the scientists get on with the work. You do understand?’ And Karen had nodded, not understanding at all, but without the energy to fight. They’d phoned Danny’s father, who was on his way home, but Vera wanted to talk to Karen now. This minute, before the man arrived. The last thing she needed was an over-protective alpha male hovering in the background.

‘How was Danny, Karen? The last few days, I mean. Since we found Mrs Lister’s body in the pool.’ ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ ‘Did he seem anxious, worried? Scared?’ ‘Are you saying he committed suicide?’ Vera had considered that briefly. It would be a tidy explanation of the case: Jenny seeing Danny stealing, Danny killing her to keep her quiet, and then himself because he couldn’t stand the stress. But nobody committed suicide by strangulation.

‘No,’ Vera said gently. ‘We believe he was murdered.’

‘Danny was never scared,’ Karen said. ‘Not even as a child. He’d climb the biggest trees he could find, swim too far out in the sea. Reckless. We always said he’d kill himself one day.’ She stared bleakly at Vera. ‘They’d play Dare, the bairns in the village. He was always the last one in the game.’

‘Anxious then.’ Vera tried to keep the impatience from her voice. ‘Would that be a better word to describe it?’

Karen was holding things together remarkably well, in a state of shock, but the reality of her son’s death hadn’t really kicked in. Vera wanted to get as much information as possible from her while she was thinking straight.

‘More unpredictable,’ Karen said. ‘Moody. He hated the job at the Willows, but he only had five more days before he went back to Bristol.’

‘What subject was he studying there?’ At the moment Vera just wanted to keep the woman talking.

‘Law.’

Vera imagined the sort of lawyer Danny would have become. A flash barrister, with an expensive suit and a bonny little female junior hanging off every word. But he wouldn’t have got very far with a criminal conviction. If Jenny Lister had caught him with his hand in someone’s purse, that might have provided a motive for murder. Danny might have had the arrogance to think he could get away with thieving, seen it as a way to supplement his income, almost his right. She’d known middle-class crooks like that. Now, though, he was the victim, and none of that seemed relevant. Vera felt as if she were lost in a fog, no point of reference and no idea where to go next.

‘Did Danny know Michael Morgan?’ Ashford had taken up the questions. He leaned forward, so that his hand and the bereaved woman’s were almost touching. ‘The acupuncturist working out of the Willows. Did Danny know him?’

Karen didn’t answer and Joe continued talking, the words soft and easy, keeping her calm. ‘Because I thought they might become friends of a kind. There was a difference in age, of course. But two educated men in a workplace full of women, they might come together.’

Karen looked up. ‘I told Danny he was no good. I told Danny to stay away from him.’

‘But our kids never take our advice, do they?’ Joe might have had teenagers himself, the way he was speaking. Vera sat back in admiration and let him get on with it. ‘They always think they know best.’ He paused. ‘How did they meet?’

‘Drinking fancy coffee in the lounge at the hotel. Danny said he couldn’t stand the muck in the staffroom. Since he moved to Bristol he’d developed pretensions. We only ever have instant at home.’ Karen gave a wry little smile, mocking her son – and herself for minding the change in him. ‘He went to the lounge before he started his shift. Morgan was often in there after he’d finished his.’

‘I can’t see Danny being taken in by all that new-age stuff.’

‘He said Morgan wasn’t either. Not really. It was just another business opportunity for him, a way of getting what he wanted.’ Karen seemed exhausted by the exchange. The shock was catching up with her.

‘And what did Morgan want, pet? Did Danny say?’ Vera thought this was important. What was going on between the student and the older man? She willed Karen to hold it together long enough to answer.

‘The same things as anyone else, apparently. A decent income. A nice home. A wife and kids.’

‘But his potential wives were so young!’

‘I know, and Danny spoke as if Morgan was someone to admire. I couldn’t stand that. “Look at the way he treats his women!” I’d say. And Danny would just smile. He said Morgan was a man who liked beautiful things and young women are usually more beautiful than older ones. He could see nothing wrong in it.’ Karen stopped abruptly, narrowed her eyes, looked like a cat about to hiss and spit. ‘Do you think Morgan killed Danny? Is that what these questions are about?’

‘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.