Ann Cleeves - Silent Voices

They sat at a table near the window looking out over the garden towards the river, she with a glass of Chardonnay and he with an orange juice. He saw that the lawns had been cut, but the borders were wild and overgrown. It occurred to him, in another uncharacteristic flash of whimsy, that they could look like lovers – the younger married man and the lively divorcee, both looking for fun or passion or companionship. Didn’t such people meet in hotels like this? For the first time he could almost understand the attraction of such an affair, the excitement.

‘I can’t be long. My husband will be expecting his tea on the table.’ Shattering the fantasy. Why had he assumed she’d be divorced?

‘How long have you worked at the Willows?’

She pulled a face. ‘Two years.’

‘You don’t enjoy it?’

‘Like I said, it’s pretty tedious. But I’m not qualified to do anything else. I thought I’d spend my days as a kept woman. Maybe I’d find anything that involved sucking up to a boss a bit hard to take.’

She paused, but he didn’t interrupt. He could tell she liked an audience. She’d keep talking.

And she did: ‘My husband has a property business. He bought up a bunch of cheap Tyneside flats before the boom, did them up to a basic standard and let them out to students. But lots of the work was done on credit. He always thought he’d be able to sell on, if things got tight.’

She paused again and this time he did stick in a few words. Just to show he was listening. ‘But when things got tight, nobody wanted to buy…’

‘Yeah. Suddenly the cash dried up. It was a shock to the system. No more holidays abroad, no new flash cars. We even had to sack the cleaner.’ She grinned at him to show she was mocking herself, the whole crazy lifestyle. It was clear that she hadn’t been brought up to money.

She continued more seriously: ‘I mean, we survived, but it wasn’t easy. Then Danny went off to uni and we had his fees to pay. He’s our only son and we didn’t want him to go short. Jerry was working his bollocks off, so the only thing to do was for me to get off my backside and get a job. I’d been a member of the Willows Health Club, so when I saw this post advertised I thought: That’ll do for me. And it’s OK. But I hadn’t reckoned on the boredom factor.’

She stared out of the window. He saw Keating, the pathologist, arriving at last. He’d been delayed on another case, and Jenny Lister was still waiting for him in the steam room.

‘Did you know the woman who died?’

‘I recognized the face. Wouldn’t have known the name.’

‘What do you remember about her?’

‘She was always in a hurry and she never stayed long. And she was polite. Always gave me a smile and a wave, even when she was just swiping her card through the barrier. Treated me like a person, not just a bit of the machinery.’

Now Ashworth had to come to the sensitive bit. A woman was going to protect her son, wasn’t she? Whatever he’d done. ‘You got a holiday job here for Danny?’

‘Yes.’ And already she was on the defensive, looking up at him as if to say: So what? No harm in that, is there?

‘How’s he liking it?’

‘He’s a young lad. He’d rather be in bed or out with his mates. But it was his idea. He wants to go travelling in the summer and he knows we can’t pay for it. So it’s down to him.’

‘We’ll have to talk to him,’ Ashworth said. ‘He cleaned the pool area. He might have seen something.’

‘You don’t need my permission to do that. He’s nearly twenty. An adult. He’ll have started his shift now, if they’ve let him into the hotel.’

Ashworth knew that they’d let Danny in and that he was sitting in Taylor’s office. He was next on the list for interview.

‘What do you know about the thieving that’s been going on here?’

She drained her glass and set it on the table, kept her voice relaxed. ‘That sort of thing goes on everywhere, doesn’t it? Petty. There’s all sorts work here. Can’t see what it might have to do with murder.’

‘But it’ll have caused bad feeling. Gossip. Not nice to think that one of your mates might be stealing from you.’

She shrugged. ‘I try not to listen too much to gossip.’ Once again she gathered up the big squashy bag. ‘If there’s nothing else, there’s a deep bath and a chilled glass waiting for me at home. One’s never quite enough for me.’ He stayed where he was and watched from the window until she emerged from the main door of the hotel. She took a mobile phone from the bag, hit a button and put it to her ear. At the car she turned and he could see that she was frowning and talking furiously. He’d have bet his police pension that she was speaking to her son.

At the Lister house, Vera tried to persuade Hannah to move in with Simon’s parents, at least for a few days, but the girl refused. ‘I want to stay up all night and cry. I’ll probably get very drunk. I couldn’t do that anywhere but in my own home.’

‘We can arrange for a liaison officer to camp out with you then.’

‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘Absolutely not. I couldn’t bear it.’

She moved back to the window and stared down at the garden, which was all in shadow now.

‘You’ll stay with her?’ Vera directed the question to Simon. The girl took no notice of them.

‘Of course,’ Simon said. ‘I’ll do whatever she wants.’

He stood behind the girl and wrapped his arms around her. They seemed not to notice Vera’s leaving.

On her way out of the village, Vera saw the white house Hannah had described as Simon’s home, and on impulse she pulled into the gravel drive. She still thought of Simon and Hannah as hardly more than children and she’d feel happier if an adult were involved in the girl’s care, or at least aware of what was going on. Besides, perhaps Simon’s mother and Jenny Lister had been friends. The woman might have useful information.

Vera saw as soon as she drove past the high yew hedge that the garden was immaculate. The daffodils and narcissi were past their best, but still there was colour everywhere: clumps of blue grape hyacinth and forget-me-not and deep-purple hellebores. The lawn had even had its first cut of the season. Either the woman’s a fanatic or she has paid help. Vera couldn’t bear tidy gardens, and she was more interested in growing food than flowers. She let dandelions grow in damp patches and picked the leaves for salad on the rare occasions when she fancied a healthy meal. Her neighbours were ageing hippies who were pleased not to have order in the next-door garden. Vera wondered briefly what they’d make of this.

There was a twitch at an upstairs window. The noise of the car had attracted attention. Vera wondered if news of Jenny’s death had spread throughout the village. Had Simon told his mother on his way out that his girlfriend’s mother was the victim? Possibly not, Vera thought. He’d arrived so quickly to look after Hannah that surely he wouldn’t have had time for any conversation. Nobody appeared at the door. Simon’s mother – if that were the person upstairs – wouldn’t want to be thought a woman who peered out of windows. Or perhaps she just hoped the visitor would drive away?

Vera rang the bell and then there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and an open door.

‘Yes?’ The woman was tall. She was in her fifties, perhaps the same age as Vera herself, but as well groomed and tidy as the unforgiving garden. Dark hair curled away from her face, grey trousers, a white cotton shirt and a long grey cardigan. Lipstick. Was she on her way out, or did she always wear it? Vera stood on the doorstep and thought how odd some women were.