Ann Cleeves - Silent Voices

‘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.