Silent Voices

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