Silent Voices

Chapter Forty-Two

To mark the end of the investigation Vera treated the team to dinner at the Willows. She didn’t see it as a celebration – the memory of the encounter between Hannah and Simon was too fresh for that – and the Willows, with its large echoing dining room, seemed to suit the mood. Besides, this was where the whole case had started.

Ryan Taylor had given them the best table in the room, next to a long window and looking out over the garden and the river. The water had gone down, but still there was a feeling of being on an island, of being cut off from the rest of the world. The place was almost empty. In a far corner an elderly couple sipped coffee in silence. At a table near the door a businessman was spooning soup into his mouth and reading the Telegraph.

‘Tell me, Joe, how did you let Simon Eliot get away?’

They’d finished eating. Vera had insisted that there’d be no talk until after the meal. And they’d drunk a lot of wine. Vera had said the taxis home would be on her. Or, she said, winking at Joe Ashworth and Holly, who seemed to be getting on better this evening than she could remember, they could stay the night here if they preferred. Charlie had just gone outside for a cigarette. They could see him in the security light on the terrace, his hand cupped round the flame as he tried to light it. He must have seen them looking, and waved at them through the window to wait until he got inside before they started talking.

Vera was teasing Joe, a habit she’d probably never get out of. Even if he became her boss, which wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, she knew she’d still have a go at him. Her resolution at the pool not to bait him was completely forgotten.

‘So come on!’ she said. ‘All that back-up, the cars and the chopper, and he could just ring his mam and you let him drive away.’

Joe, mellow on Merlot and a brandy with his coffee, didn’t allow himself to be provoked. ‘You told us he spent every summer camping out there. He knew all the places to hide.’

‘Banged up now, at any rate,’ Vera said. She’d taken Eliot to the police station herself, breaking every rule in the book yet again, letting him sit beside her in the Land Rover. Hannah she’d left in the care of Hilda. ‘He’ll plead guilty. No need for Jenny’s daughter to appear in court. That was what I was afraid of, that was why I wanted to wait.’

They sat for a moment, and Vera knew they were all thinking about Connie and Alice and what might have happened if Joe hadn’t got there on time. Charlie appeared in the doorway and walked across the polished wooden floor to join them.

‘So talk us through it then, boss,’ he said. He was already unsteady on his feet, but he poured himself another glass of wine. He’d already told them he didn’t do spirits: the slippery slope. ‘Beginning to end.’

Vera had been waiting for the invitation. She’d have given them the story anyway, but it was much more gratifying to be asked. She sat back in her chair at the head of the table, a glass in her hand, and began. She spoke slowly. This wasn’t for rushing.

‘The beginning was simple,’ she said. ‘A frustrated middle-aged woman fancying a good-looking young man. And a student choosing experience over innocence. Or wanting his cake and eating it. It happened one night when Hannah was out. Simon came to visit her, but she’d been held up and Jenny asked him in to wait. Offered him a glass of wine.’ She shrugged, held up her glass. ‘Terrible stuff, alcohol.’

She looked round the table and saw that she had them hooked, like bairns listening to a bedtime story.

‘Simon kissed her,’ she said. ‘Nothing else then and he apologized, but that was the start of it. Jenny became obsessed with him and an affair developed. He was flattered by her attention, I think. Why wouldn’t he be? She was still lovely. They met every week in Durham. Jenny wanted to see Mattie anyway to get information for the book. She went first to see Mattie. The prison visits were short. Jenny was there as much to make herself feel better about screwing her daughter’s man as to collect information for her great work of literature. Really she was desperate to spend time with the boy.’

She paused, topped up her glass, and imagined herself as Jenny Lister, counting off the hours until she could spend time with Simon Eliot in his student house. ‘Then guilt set in, as it always does.’ Again she looked at Ashworth. ‘It’s a terrible thing, guilt. Not everyone can cope with it.’ Another grin.

‘So why did Simon Eliot kill her?’ Charlie could understand the sex part, Vera saw that; it was the violence he didn’t get.

‘Eh, Charlie man, give a woman the chance to tell a story in her own time.’

Vera had asked Taylor to leave the whisky bottle on the table and tipped a little more into her glass. Bugger the doctors and their healthy living – tonight she needed to get pleasantly pissed.

‘While Jenny Lister was besotted with her young lover, Michael Morgan had taken up with pretty little Freya. About the same sort of age difference between both couples, though we don’t talk about Jenny corrupting Simon, do we? Then Jenny found out from Mattie that Freya was pregnant and she became involved in the Morgan case again. It all got a bit close to home, didn’t it? Suddenly it would have hit her that she was screwing Mattie’s half-brother…’ Vera half closed her eyes and thought about chance and the coincidence of Jenny Lister and Veronica Eliot living in the same village. But Northumberland was the least-populated county in England and in small communities there were always connections. ‘She decided it had to stop. And being honourable and really stupid, she decided she’d have to come clean to Hannah. Simon couldn’t stand that. Hannah worshipped him. They were engaged, after all, a big commitment for a couple that young.’

‘Where did Danny Shaw come into it?’ Ashworth was suddenly getting impatient. Maybe there’d been a text from his wife, read surreptitiously under the table, asking where the hell he was.

Vera opened her eyes and sat forward. ‘Ah, Danny Shaw, wild boy and charmer. And thief. Never got on with boys of his own age, always wanted to knock around with older people. If I were some sort of social worker I’d maybe diagnose a conflict with his father, but luckily I don’t go in for all that crap.’ She paused and tried to put into words the friendship between Danny and Simon. ‘Simon was everything Danny wanted to be: he went to the posh school in town, his father was a successful businessman, and Simon had the girl Danny had fallen for. But that didn’t make Danny resent Simon. It just made the younger boy admire him. Weird.’

‘So?’ Ashworth demanded. ‘I still don’t see why he had to die.’

In the corner, the elderly couple got to their feet, and holding hands like teenagers they walked slowly out of the dining room.

‘That’s because you’re not very bright, pet. You don’t have a logical mind.’

‘Did Danny help Simon with the murder?’ Holly asked. ‘He was working there. He could get Simon through the turnstile and into the pool. He knew too much.’

‘Right!’ Vera gave Holly a little clap of approval because she knew it would wind up Ashworth.

‘But why would he do that?’ It was Ashworth, fighting back. ‘Why make himself an accessory to murder?’

‘Because he’s young and daft,’ Vera said. ‘Because he liked taking risks. Because his hero asked him to.’

And maybe because he still blamed Jenny Lister for

breaking up his relationship with Hannah. Or maybe at that point he didn’t even know Simon intended to kill the woman. Perhaps he thought it was a joke, a big game.

‘Talk us through that day,’ Charlie said. ‘Tell us what actually happened. No more psycho-babble.’ He slumped forward across the table.

‘Jenny came here a couple of times a week to use the pool before work. Not dead early, but before the cheap sessions started. Simon wanted to make sure she would be there that day, so he arranged to meet her for coffee before she went for her swim. Of course he didn’t show. He’d gone beyond the stage of deep and meaningful talking. She got changed as usual, leaving her clothes and bag in her locker, and went into the steam room as usual, but Simon was waiting for her.’

‘Danny had let him in,’ Holly said. ‘We know he’d stayed here overnight and was in the hotel that morning.’

‘Yes, Danny had let him in. Another anonymous swimmer. Who would notice? Simon’s a strong young man, a rower. He could strangle her and make no noise. There would always be a danger that someone would interrupt him, but I suspect Danny was keeping watch. Again, who takes notice of a cleaner? You see the mop, the bucket, even the overalls, but you don’t see the man. And nobody noticed Jenny’s body for more than an hour until I found her, which gave them both time to leave the hotel.’

Vera leaned back in her chair. Had the two young men considered the enormity of what they’d planned? Or had it been an intellectual challenge for them? Like some project set at university?

‘Simon went into the gents’ changing rooms to get dressed, but of course there was a problem. Jenny’s bag was in her locker in the ladies’. And in her bag was her diary, her notes. Probably some reference to her infatuation with Simon. The solution was easy.’ Vera looked up, became again their mentor and teacher. ‘Anyone?’

‘Danny,’ Holly said, jumping in ahead of Ashworth. ‘He had a pass key.’

‘Right! Simon cleared out of the hotel as soon as he could; he was too bright to be seen hanging around there. Not so concerned, you notice, about Danny. He left him to collect the bag and get rid of it, and to bring the notes back to him in Barnard Bridge. But Danny was curious. Who wouldn’t be?’

‘So he checked out what was in the bag before he dumped it?’

‘Of course. And he wasn’t as cool as he pretended either. He didn’t know Barnard Bridge and got lost on his way to the house. He’d thrown the bag into the weeds at Mallow Cottage before Connie saw him.’

Ryan Taylor came up to clear the table. By now all the waiting staff had left and they were the only guests remaining. ‘I’m sorry, pet,’ Vera said. ‘You’ll want to be away home. Just throw us out when you’re ready for us to go.’

‘No rush,’ he said. ‘I’m staying here tonight.’ He flicked a switch and dimmed all the other lights in the room so that they were spotlit by one dusty chandelier. Vera felt like an actress; she’d always enjoyed performing for an audience and looked around her to make sure she had their full attention. Perhaps when she retired she’d go in for amateur dramatics, though she didn’t see there’d be nearly as much fun in the made-up stuff.

The background music had been turned off now. Vera thought this was not so much like being on the stage, but in one corner of a huge film set, one of those big dusty hangars, where fantasies were created with bits of hardboard and scraps of velvet and silk.

‘So Danny Shaw? If the lads were such friends, why did Simon kill him?’ Ashworth leaned across the table and took Vera’s bottle, poured a large measure into his glass. Oh, Joey boy, Vera thought. What will the perfect wife make of you turning up pissed? You’ll be changing the mucky nappies for the next fortnight.

‘Danny started to think he deserved more than a thank-you for helping Simon commit murder,’ Vera said. ‘And maybe he didn’t even get that. If Simon hadn’t taken him for granted, I don’t think he’d have made demands. For him it had all been about friendship.’

He talked about friendship to Michael Morgan. Michael was preoccupied and not listening properly and, self-centred bastard that he is, he thought Danny was talking about him. Until I asked him about it again this morning.

‘So Danny started to blackmail Simon?’ Holly said. Even after a week with little sleep and a bucketful of alcohol, she still looked poised and lovely. Some things in life weren’t fair.

‘He was probably more subtle than that. But Bristol’s a university that attracts wealthy folks’ kids. His girlfriend’s parents were minted. He wanted enough cash to feel that he belonged.’ Vera paused. ‘I don’t think he ever would have gone public on Simon, he probably didn’t even threaten to, but Simon couldn’t risk it. That day he borrowed Jenny’s car. He told Hannah he was going to the supermarket and he must have gone shopping on the way home. Cool customer! More like his father than his mother. I’d guess Christopher could be pretty ruthless too, and Veronica just lost it at the end. Did she suspect her son had killed the social worker? Maybe she saw some of the notes he brought home. Maybe she heard the end of a phone conversation with Danny. That was her worst nightmare, that her son was a murderer. That’s why she suddenly became best buddy with Connie Masters. She wanted information, reassurance.’

‘Can we get back to Danny Shaw?’ Charlie was struggling to get the words out without slurring. ‘Don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to need my bed pretty soon.’

‘Simon strangled him and lit the bonfire with the files from Jenny’s bag. Taking out anything that might point to him first, of course. To implicate Danny in the first murder and just generally muddy the waters.’ Vera beamed to herself and realized how drunk she must look, but she didn’t care. Muddy waters. Good image.

‘Then things got to him and he lost all that composure, started to do the “what if” thing, and that’s always dangerous. What if Jenny had gone to interview Connie for her book? Simon hadn’t even realized she was living in the village until I told him. That must have really freaked him out. What if they’d been best mates and Jenny had confided in her about the relationship? The anxiety ate away at him. First he threatened Connie by phone, then he persuaded his mother to take them to the boathouse.’ Vera looked up at them. ‘But deep down he was just jealous of the care Connie gave to her daughter. This case was always about kids and their parents. Simon Eliot was like a little lad in a tantrum, smashing what he knew he could never have.’

‘Eliot almost killed a four-year-old child because he was jealous of her?’ Ashworth was incredulous.

Vera shrugged. ‘We’ll probably never know exactly why he threw her in the water. His brother had drowned, and so had his sister’s son. Maybe there on the boathouse deck he saw it as payback time.’

‘Is that what you think this was all about?’ Charlie raised his head far enough from the table to speak.

‘Doesn’t matter what I believe, does it? The CPS has got him for two murders that he’s admitted. They probably won’t push him on the child. And Connie won’t want to go through another court case, so I imagine she’ll be happy to let it drop.’

‘Another child that’ll be terrified of water all her life,’ Holly said.

‘Aye, maybe.’ But Vera wasn’t sure about all this cause and effect. Life was less predictable and more messy than that. Best leave the theories to the shrinks and social workers. ‘Or she could turn out to be an Olympic swimmer.’