Chapter Thirty-Six

Vera spent all day in the hotel lounge at the Willows. Most of the guests had left, despite Ryan Taylor’s reassurance that the sandbags would keep out the flood. The place was silent and gloomy; there was little natural light from outside despite the long windows. She’d shouted at him to switch off the background music after ‘Walking Back to Happiness’ had come round for the third time on the taped loop; she felt as if the tune were mocking her for her inability to get the case right.

She’d decided on inaction, at least for today. Waiting was always torture to her and she understood it was a risk. If he knew what was in her mind, Joe Ashworth would be horrified. He’d recommend arrests, dramatic chases through the countryside. And of course she could be wrong. The idea had come to her sitting here, listening to the young waiter describe how Jenny Lister had waited here on the morning of her death for someone who never turned up. It wasn’t much to build a case on. And even if she were right, Vera thought, there’d be no guarantee of a conviction. A guilty plea would be better for everyone. The decision to wait having been made, it was better that she stay here where she would do no harm. If she went out, she might put in her huge, wellie-clad foot and upset the delicate balance that she sensed now existed. There was always a danger of further violence.

So she sat in the big floral armchair by the window and occasionally summoned her team members to her. More often she spoke on the phone, sometimes persuading and sometimes swearing. Once she threw it across the room, and she had to retrieve it from the silk chaise longue where it had landed. Doreen, the elderly waitress, brought her cups of coffee, cheese sandwiches, hard scones and butter. Every hour or so Vera would pull herself to her feet and stamp around the room to bring the feeling back into her limbs. She’d stand in front of the fire, which at last seemed to throw out some warmth, or waddle to the toilet, then return to her seat and continue to scribble notes that charted the progress of the case.

Once she stopped for ten minutes to stare outside at a rainbow that spanned the valley. But the sun, which had come out briefly, was soon covered again by cloud and the rainbow faded and then disappeared.

Holly was her first visitor. She arrived in the early afternoon, starving. Vera fed her crisps and cake and listened to what she had to say about Hannah and Danny. Holly had been to the high school and talked to a couple of teachers, and through them she’d managed to meet up with some of the kids who’d been friends with Danny and Hannah. They’d met in the bar in Hexham, where one of them was working to save up to go travelling. He’d called up another couple of cronies. ‘Not that Danny had many close friends,’ Holly said, her mouth still full of cake. ‘Apparently he was a bright lad, but cocky. A tad arrogant. The teachers wouldn’t say, but you could tell they couldn’t stand him. The kids were a bit more forgiving. He was like leader of the gang. The show-off. But they admired him more than they liked him. I had the impression he was considered very cool, but a bit self-centred. Good for a fun night out, but not for a long-term friendship.’

That word again.

‘What about the relationship with Hannah?’ Vera was still taking notes. She wanted this clear in her head.

‘She wasn’t his first girlfriend, they were all clear about that. But she was the first girl he really cared for. And the first time he’d been dumped, apparently. It came as a shock to the system. Not what he’d been expecting at all.’

‘Did he blame Simon Eliot?’ Vera thought this could be important. She looked at Holly and hoped she was taking the question seriously. ‘It does look as if Hannah dumped him for Simon.’

‘Danny was probably pissed off at the time, but more recently they seem to have got on OK. People have seen them knocking around together in the university holidays. It’s not really a big deal at that age, is it?’

Which was what Hannah had said too.

‘So nobody thought Danny had a grudge against the Eliot boy? He could be one to harbour a grudge.’

‘Nah,’ Holly said. ‘I didn’t get the impression there was anything like that.’

Vera gave a little sigh, which reminded Holly of her nana playing patience. Sometimes, when she played out all the cards, she made a noise that was exactly the same as the one Vera made now.

‘Any of them heard of Michael Morgan?’ Vera asked after a brief pause. ‘Do we know if Danny had contact with him before he started working in the hotel?’

‘They didn’t recognize the name.’ Holly set her plate on the floor beside her. ‘But that doesn’t mean anything. They said that Danny liked to be mysterious about what he got up to. Part of his image. Sometimes he disappeared off the radar for days and nobody knew what he’d been up to.’ She looked at Vera. ‘Sorry, it’s not much, is it? I can carry on asking around if you think it’s important.’

‘Why don’t you get home early?’ Vera said. ‘It’ll be bloody nightmare on the roads with all this standing water, and you’ll have a long day tomorrow.’

She had the satisfaction of seeing Holly lost for words. For once.


Vera hadn’t heard from Charlie all morning and she summoned him in to the Willows after Holly had gone. She saw him walk from his car and up the steps, with that stooped posture he always had, as if he were looking out for dog shit on the pavement before he put down his feet. By now the sunshine and the rainbow had gone and it was almost dark, though it was still only the middle of the afternoon. Doreen had padded round the lounge switching on small table lamps. Charlie stood at the entrance to the room, peering into the gloom, and Vera called him over. She’d always had a bit of a soft spot for him. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that his private life was even more of a failure than hers. He made her feel good.

‘Tea?’ she said. ‘Or could you use something a bit stronger?’

‘What are you having?’ Charlie had never really mastered the art of being gracious and the words came out as an aggressive grunt.

‘Oh, it’s a bit early for me,’ she said virtuously, ‘and I’m drowning with tea, but I’ll get you something.’

‘Tea then.’ He looked at her suspiciously.

‘Have you found Connie, that social worker, yet?’

‘I found her car. Or at least I saw it a couple of times on CCTV. There’s a camera in Effingham, the village east of Barnard Bridge. A little lass was killed on the zebra crossing and the parish council paid to have one installed.’ Doreen had brought him a plate of biscuits with his tea and he dipped one in the cup before eating it whole.

‘And where was the other camera?’ Sometimes, Vera thought, patience was the only way to deal with Charlie.

‘There was only one, but the car appeared on it twice.’ The second biscuit crumbled and fell into the tea before he had a chance to eat it. He swore under his breath and scooped it out with his spoon.

‘Why don’t you explain to me, Charlie? Words of one syllable. I’m a bit brain-dead after spending most of the day in this place.’

‘Yesterday, nine o’clock in the morning, the car goes east.’

‘So towards Newcastle.’

‘Aye, but if she were going into Newcastle, wouldn’t she just cut onto the A69 and go down the dual carriageway?’

‘I don’t know, Charlie, maybe she wanted to go on the scenic route!’ But would she? Vera wondered. If Connie were scared and had somewhere in mind to run to, wouldn’t she just choose the quickest road?

Charlie ignored that and continued. ‘Then an hour and twenty minutes later she drove back west, past the same camera.’

‘So where was she going?’ Vera was talking to herself now. ‘Certainly not into Newcastle. There’d hardly be time to get there and back, never mind do whatever she wanted while she was there. Unless she just wanted to drop off her daughter for safekeeping. But that would be with the father, and he says he’s not heard from her, and why should he lie? To Hexham then? To pick up a load of food from the supermarket, if she’s planning to go into hiding. I had an idea, but I must have got everything wrong.’

‘If she carried on driving she’d end up in Carlisle,’ Charlie said. ‘From there, Scotland or anywhere in north-west England.’

‘I don’t need a geography lesson, man!’

And I don’t need reminding that this is needle-andhaystack territory.

They sat for a moment in silence. Doreen threw a log onto the fire and it must have been damp because it hissed and oozed sap.

‘Holly said an early finish might be in order.’ Charlie gave her a look, hopeful, almost pleading. It reminded her of one of those big, soft, slack-jawed dogs, the sort she’d always hated and felt like kicking under the table when the owner wasn’t looking. The sort that drooled.

‘Not for you, bonny lad.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘You’ve still got that car to find. I know you’re not one for leaving a job half done.’

Now it was quite dark outside and though she thought the rain had started again because the lights that lined the drive were misty, filtered by the moisture, she couldn’t hear it. If there were still guests in the hotel they must be hidden in their rooms. No cars approached the house, though she watched Charlie’s leave. She thought she should be kinder to him. There was no real sport in having a go at him. But at this sort of job he was the best on the team, and she’d told him that too, before he’d shrugged on his stained raincoat and walked away from her.

She shouted to Doreen to bring her a bowl of chips, maybe a burger if they could run to it. When the food arrived she had her eyes shut and was lost in thought – not relaxed at all, but the ideas bouncing around in her brain, random images colliding and connecting and almost making sense. She ate too quickly because she didn’t want to lose the thread of her deliberations and ended up with indigestion that stayed with her all night.

Later she made a call to Durham prison. ‘Yes, I know what time it is. But this is urgent. I need to get a message to Mattie Jones. Even better, let me speak to her.’

But the governor was unsympathetic. He’d been called in on his night off. There’d been a suicide and then trouble on one of the wings. They’d done an early lock-up in the hope of calming things down. He implied that he wouldn’t put the safety of his officers and inmates at risk on the whim of a policewoman. Vera pressed him, but without success. There was surely nothing, he said, patronizing and unmoving, that couldn’t wait until the morning.

As soon as that call was ended, Ashworth rang. Hannah Lister was back home, he said. He didn’t know where she’d spent the afternoon, but he’d seen her arrive. Simon was there too now. Did Vera want him to chat to her?

‘No,’ Vera said. ‘Best leave things be, for tonight.’

For the last time she stood up and halted in front of the fire. There was a temptation to stay where she was, to curl up in the big armchair and sleep the night there. But she went out into the soft, dark evening, intending to drive home.

Halfway there the idea came to her, sudden, like a light bulb flashing above her head in the cartoons she read when she was a child. In comics bought for her by Hector because he loved them too. She did a U-turn the next place she came to and went south and east towards the coast.

Tynemouth was hidden by the misty drizzle and she came on it suddenly, the lamps on the wide main street hardly throwing enough light to park the car. Outside there was a smell of salt and seaweed. The foghorn was sounding, as it had that first time she’d come to interview Morgan.

There were no lights on in his flat. She looked at her watch. Nine o’clock. Too early, surely, for the couple to be in bed. All the same she rang the bell and banged on the door. No answer. Someone appeared in the mist at the top of the street. Tall as Morgan and wearing a long coat, a snug hat that gave the same outline as a bald head would. But it wasn’t him, she saw as he approached. This man was younger, a student.

Still she refused to give up and she walked through the village, checking all the bars and restaurants, looking for Morgan or his woman. Looking quite mad, she realized, as she grew more desperate. All she wanted was confirmation, for Morgan to dig into his memory, to relive his conversations with Mattie Jones and Danny Shaw. A few words to make sense of the whole drama. There was no sign of them and at last, after trying the flat for one last time, she went back to her car. When she arrived home, she saw it was midnight.

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