Silent Voices

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,