Silent Voices

Chapter Forty-One

From the boathouse Simon Eliot watched impassively. Then he turned deliberately, did a perfect swallow-dive from the deck, and began to swim away to the far end of the pool. A show. Like the fit lifeguards at the Willows, when they were showing off in front of the yummy mummies. He must know now that there was no escape for him.

Vera decided to leave Joe Ashworth in charge of the operation to pick up Eliot. There was some satisfaction in knowing she’d been right about the killer. It had come to her suddenly, thinking about the teenage waiter’s blushes when he spoke about Jenny Lister. Jenny had talked about her unsuitable lover. Who could be more unsuitable than her daughter’s fiancé? And who was more likely to fall for an older woman than Simon Eliot, whose own mother’s energies had been taken up with grieving for her two other lost children? But Vera felt ill when she thought how close they’d been to losing a child. She found her sports bag in the back of the Land Rover. A towel and a brand-new tracksuit, bought after she’d first joined the Willows Health Club and never worn.

‘Put this on,’ she said to Ashworth. ‘You’ll catch your death.’

‘I can’t wear that!’ He’d always been vain.

‘Suit yourself.’

In the end the cold convinced him. He went behind the high wall and came out, his hair tousled like a bairn’s and in the tracksuit. The legs were a bit short, and the joggers looked odd above the sodden work shoes. If he hadn’t been such a hero, Vera would have taken a photo on her phone and sent it to the rest of the team.

‘Be grateful I’m not a girlie type and I don’t wear pink,’ she said. Relief was making her a bit giggly and flighty. ‘What’d you have looked like then?’

Connie and Alice sat in the passenger seat; Alice had changed into dry clothes already and was wrapped in Connie’s coat. Ashworth had pulled Connie ashore in the dinghy after handing Alice to Vera. Vera could still remember the feel of the soaking child in her arms, the fragile bones and the fluttering heart. It was like holding one of Hector’s birds, she thought. An owl perhaps. And as close she’d get now to cuddling a bairn of her own.

‘You don’t want to stay and see this through?’ Ashworth asked. ‘We can get a patrol car to take Connie home. The water’s already gone down a bit.’

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘This is more important.’ And she knew it would only take a matter of minutes for Ashworth to track Eliot down. The man had no car, he was wet through and there was a helicopter buzzing overhead. Joe deserved the glory of the arrest.

She dropped Connie and Alice at Mallow Cottage. ‘You’re sure you don’t want a lift to A&E?’

‘The ambulance crew checked her over and said she’s fine.’

‘Aye, well then.’ Vera thought it was for the best, but she wouldn’t have minded putting off the next interview for a bit longer.

She parked outside the Lister house. The elderly woman next door was watching through the nets and gave Vera a little wave when she recognized her. Reassuring that there was someone to keep an eye out for Hannah. Vera rang the bell and heard footsteps. The door opened and the girl was already speaking.

‘Where have you been? I thought you’d only gone to the supermarket.’ Not nagging. That one would never be a nagging sort of woman. Just concerned. Then she saw Vera and it was like a rerun of the first visit to the house, the time when Vera had to tell Hannah that her mother was dead.

‘Oh, it’s you, Inspector. I thought you were Simon. He’s taken my mother’s car to get some food. He’s been ages, but perhaps he’s got stuck in the floods. Do you want some coffee?’ She walked through to the kitchen and Vera followed.

‘Maybe later, pet. We need to talk first.’

Something about Vera’s face made the girl stop in her tracks.

‘You’ve found him, haven’t you? The man who killed my mother?’

‘Aye, we know who it is. Not in custody yet, but only a matter of time.’

‘Is it someone I’d know?’ Hannah looked up at her, sensing perhaps that there was more to this than the official notification that the killer had been found.

Vera paused. The girl had been through so much already. How could Vera tell her that the man she adored was a murderer?

‘It’s Simon.’

‘No!’ She forced a laugh. ‘This is a terrible joke, right?’ Her face was grey. She pulled out a chair and almost fell into it.

‘No joke. Do you want me to tell you about it? Should I get someone to be with you first? Friend? Teacher?’ Vera had asked much the same question on that earlier visit too and Simon had come rushing in. Hannah’s knight in shining armour. Her boy fiancé.

‘Tell me. I don’t believe it, but tell me your story.’

‘She fell in love with him. Your mother fell in love with him.’

There was a silence, which wasn’t what Vera had been expecting. She’d thought there would be tears, denial, rage, even that Hannah would throw her out of the house.

‘You’re not surprised?’

‘She fancied him,’ Hannah said quietly. ‘You could tell. But Simon and I made a joke about it. Why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t a middle-aged woman fancy a fit younger man? But she wouldn’t do anything about it. My mother was a good woman.’

And she was getting older, body clock ticking. It’s a powerful sensation, lust. Easy to convince yourself that you’re in love when the hormones start working. Love gives us licence to do what we like. Love is honourable and brave, even if we’re screwing our daughter’s fiancé. All bollocks of course, but that’s what we’re brought up to believe. And after being good for so long, the temptation to be wicked must have been overwhelming. I understand all that.

‘What about Simon? Did he fancy her?’

‘He liked her. Admired her. He didn’t have much of a relationship with his own mother, so I was pleased Mum and Simon got on so well.’

‘They were lovers,’ Vera said. It was best the girl heard the details from her. No doubt the story would dribble out over time, even if Eliot was persuaded to plead guilty. ‘Have been for months. They met an afternoon a week in Durham. Her excuse was that she went to Durham prison to meet Mattie Jones, but she always kept the visits very short. Mattie confirmed that with my sergeant. Then they spent the rest of the day in Simon’s house. His parents had bought it for him. An investment. Very handy.’ She looked at Hannah. ‘We showed Jenny’s photo to the neighbours. A few recognized her. The pair of them were about as discreet as it’s possible to be, but there’s no doubt, I’m afraid. One afternoon they left the curtains open and a nosy old lady saw them kissing.’ This was another of the operations she’d planned from her seat in the Willows the day before: a house-to-house in the street where Simon lived. She had a couple of friends who worked for County Durham police. They’d owed her a few favours, paid back now.

‘Thursdays,’ Hannah said slowly. ‘Mum was always late home on Thursdays. And I knew not to contact Simon then, because he said he had rowing practice. Followed by a few pints with the boys, of course.’

‘Then your mother must have started feeling guilty,’ Vera said. ‘Not about the relationship with Simon, I think, but about lying to you. She wanted it all out in the open.’ Stupid woman. Some things are best

kept secret. ‘Simon hated the idea of your knowing. If he loved anyone, it was you.’

‘So he killed Mum just to stop her telling me?’ Now Hannah was horrified.

‘Oh, pet, nothing’s quite that simple, is it?’

Because Simon Eliot was certainly a complicated young man. He was someone else with disturbing childhood memories. Pictures in his head. First, of a small brother who disappeared in a river in flood. Then who seemed to disappear completely from the family’s life. No toys. No clothes. No photographs. Simon must have been left with a sense of guilt, confused that nobody would acknowledge it. Had he believed himself mad? There would have been times when he’d thought the whole incident was imagined. Maybe the care of a compassionate social worker was just what he needed.

Hannah was staring at her. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘I want to know.’

‘Simon had a half-sister,’ Vera said, ‘called Mattie Jones.’

‘That woman who killed her child?’

‘That woman.’ Vera looked at the kitchen tiles and saw that her mucky wellingtons had left a trail of footprints. She should have taken them off at the door. ‘Veronica had a child when she was still a schoolgirl.’

‘But my mother wouldn’t have told him about that!’ Hannah’s voice was so high-pitched that it came out like a shriek. ‘She never discussed her work with anyone.’

But with Simon, Jenny Lister had broken all her rules.

‘Perhaps she didn’t tell him,’ Vera said. ‘Perhaps he found her notes. The plan for the book she intended to write.’

They sat in silence.

‘Simon and Danny were friends, weren’t they?’ Vera had done what she’d come for, but Hannah was so calm and composed that she felt she could ask more questions.

‘Sure, I told you they were.’

‘But close friends?’

‘Yeah, we were all in Folkworks, the scheme for young musicians at the Sage. Danny was a mean fiddle-player. Great on guitar too. He didn’t get on so well with the kids at school; he was more comfortable with the older guys he played music with.’

‘Even though he’d lost you to Simon?’

‘I told you. Things like that happen all the time. It’s no big deal. Danny liked heroes. Simon was older, cleverer.’

But I was distracted by it. I saw the young men as rivals, not allies. That threw me entirely off track.

‘Where is he?’ Hannah asked suddenly. ‘Where’s Simon?’

‘Last time I saw him he was soaking wet. He’d just swum across the pool at Greenhough, trying to get away from us.’

‘That was where we first made love,’ Hannah said. ‘In the boathouse. This time of year, but it was sunny. Birdsong in the woods. He took me out on a boat on the lake and we drank champagne.’ She looked out into the garden. Next door Hilda was pegging sheets onto the line. Hannah, though, was lost in thought and didn’t notice her. ‘I could always tell he was damaged. He had these weird silences and sometimes he’d get angry for no real reason. But I thought I could heal him. I thought I could make him whole.’

‘Oh, pet, nobody could do that for him.’

‘Except my mother,’ Hannah said. ‘Perhaps she could.’

‘No! She was going to spoil everything!’ The voice was loud and sharp and startled them both. It was like someone shouting in church. Simon had let himself in through the front door. Vera had been so focused on the girl that she hadn’t heard him. His dark hair was still damp, but he’d changed into dry clothes.

‘How did you get here?’ Vera said. Then immediately, ‘Your mother, was it? The one child that she has left she wants to protect. You gave her a ring and she drove out to rescue you? Took you home to get changed, then let you on your way? Very responsible, I’m sure, to let a murderer on the loose.’

‘You can’t blame my mother,’ he said. He sounded suddenly weary. ‘She doesn’t know what’s been going on.’

‘She knows enough,’ Vera snapped back. ‘She guessed it at least. Why else would she get Connie and Alice out of Mallow Cottage?’

‘Because I asked her to.’

‘And why would you do that? What danger could Connie Masters be to you?

‘Jenny was planning to interview her for the bloody book. Maybe she already had. What if she’d told the woman we were lovers? I couldn’t risk Masters talking to the police again. She could give me a motive for murder.’

The words were rambling, incoherent, and Vera thought Simon was deceiving himself. That wasn’t the real reason for the abduction. From the big white house he’d seen Connie and Alice together. Playing happy families in the garden where his brother had been drowned. She could tell from the bitterness in his voice that he’d hated them.

‘I want to talk to Hannah,’ he said. ‘I want to explain.’

‘Yeah, and I want to win the Lottery and not deal with people like you ever again. But it’s not going to happen.’

‘Please,’ Hannah said. ‘Give him a couple of minutes.’ She stood up and the two young people were facing each other across the room. Again, Vera thought how calm she was. It had been the uncertainty surrounding her mother’s death that had fractured her confidence and personality. Knowledge had put her back together. ‘So tell me, please, Simon, why did you feel the need to kill the woman who’d been so good to you?’

‘How can you say that?’ He was screaming. ‘How can you say that when she tempted me? When she took me away from you?’

‘That was your choice, I’d say, Simon. Your responsibility. Why did she have to die?’

‘She was going to tell you. Then everything would have been over between us. I couldn’t bear it.’ Tears were running down his cheeks.

‘Oh, Simon, you’re such a child. You make me feel as old as the world.’ The words were cold and deliberate. Hannah walked towards him and Vera expected a gesture of violence. A slap on the face. She was ready for that. Instead the girl took him in her arms and held him for a moment. He rested his head on her shoulder and she stroked his hair. Then she pushed him away and turned to Vera. ‘Now take him away. I never want to see him again. If he stays here any longer I might have to get a bread knife and kill him.’